


live for today, hope for tomorrow

by Vennat



Series: Harry Potter and the Hidden Path [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Dumbledore Bashing, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, BAMF Harry Potter, Blood, Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Canon Rewrite, Depression, Food Issues, Friendship, Gen, Harry Potter Has a Saving People Thing, Harry Potter is Bad at Feelings, Harry Potter is a Good Friend, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury, Mentor Severus Snape, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smart Harry Potter, The Golden Trio, Vomit, i promise all the plot makes sense with only minor changes, some of that stuff is eventual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2020-07-28 05:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20058616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vennat/pseuds/Vennat
Summary: Professors are Hogwarts are a little more observant and a little less likely to allow their students to be in harms way.ORA canon rewrite starting from book two, featuring friendship, angst, and a severe lack of oblivious characters.





	1. 1: the unassuming beginning of all things

**Author's Note:**

> hoooo boy. I have 30k written of this so far, and it's harry's bday so im starting to post this today. im starting college next month, but i have every intention of seeing this story through to year 6 (in which the plot wraps up). heed the tags people!!!!! lmk if i need to add some more, but that's the only warning im giving for content, alright? please be careful lads.  
here's the music i listened to on repeat while i wrote this: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4wLzJiLbHaJRLzRb7njTn8
> 
> check the series notes for explanations on why some characters are not exactly the same as in canon!!

After Uncle Vernon had found out he couldn't do magic at home, he had gone back to treating Harry awfully, rather than fearfully. (He had only found out because, apparently, Hogwarts found it necessary to inform Muggle guardians of this particular rule.) Very quickly, it was back to huge lists of chores, practically non-existent meals, and awful punishments if he stepped even a toe out of line. Best not forget the new additions, of course-- bars on the window, locks on the door; even a cat flap on the door for them to dump scraps in every few days. 

So here Harry was, lying on his bed, wishing he could muster up enough energy for his usual hatred of the Dursley’s. _ At the very least, _ he reasoned with himself, _ I’m out of my cupboard. _(Which was about as much optimism as Harry could summon-- bloody, bruised, and exhausted as he was.) 

Harry still wasn’t quite sure what he had done to anger his uncle, but he never usually needed a reason, so Harry figured it was something along the lines of “existing.” When Uncle Vernon had returned that day from work, he had laid into Harry about what a waste of space he was, how he and his family were saints for ever taking in a worthless little wretch like Harry, how he couldn’t believe that this was how the freak repaid him, etc. This was normal, and while he wasn’t completely unaffected by the words, he comforted himself with the knowledge that he had friends who wanted him, and parents who had died _ loving _him. It was more than he’d ever had before. 

But then, Uncle Vernon had done something different. 

It’s not like Harry had any delusions of his uncle being a particularly kind, or nonviolent person. But when the buckle of his belt had bit into Harry’s back, and blood went flying, _ owowithurtsstopPLEASEstop-- _

Harry wished fervently to spell open the locks, wrench open the door to Hedwig’s cage, and send her to somebody- anybody- to come and save him. But Hedwig was locked in her cage, as she had been all summer long, and Harry was stuck in his bed-- his battered, starved body too tired to do much more than sit there and listen to the rattle of his own lungs. Harry wondered idly if this would be one of those weeks where they locked him in his room all week and “forgot” to feed him, so busy as they were pretending he didn't exist; or one of the weeks where they gave him an impossibly long list of chores to be finished, day after day, that always resulted in a night locked in the cupboard for his failure to complete them. 

It turned out to be the former. Harry had never in his life been so thankful to himself for charming those rolls at the end of last year, to save for an emergency. _ If any situation counts as an emergency, it’s this one, _thought Harry, as he tried to ignore the stiff, dried blood on his back.

Over the next few days, Harry celebrated his birthday quietly, and by himself, as he had so many years before this one. He thought fondly of the previous summer, when Hagrid had come and taken him into a world far away from the Dursleys. Harry spent the consequent days hoping someone would come for him again. 

Then, Ron and the Twins _ had _come for him. It was like an answer to his silent pleas! The twins and Ron hadn’t even seemed to think too much of his living situation, because not a single one of them had mentioned anything about it. 

Solid meals and rest did wonders to help him heal quickly, and in Harry’s opinion, summer had taken a severe turn for the better. Harry spent the last two weeks of the break relaxing and playing quidditch-- it was the best two weeks of his life, which he happily told Mrs. Weasley. She smiled at Harry and patted his cheek, and he tried not to lean too hard into the touch. 

(There had been a slight bump in the road with the confrontation between Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Weasley, but secretly, Harry was impressed with Mr. Weasley. He would never say that in front of Mrs. Weasley, though, because despite what Hermione and Ron said, he did have _ some _sense of self preservation.)

Then, it was off to Hogwarts for the lot of them, and Harry was happy to find a new friend on the train-- a pale girl named Luna, who would be in the same year as Ginny. Harry sat with Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and Luna in a compartment they had to themselves the whole trip. Harry made sure to look at each of his friend's smiling faces, and lock the image tight into his memory. 

Really, Harry should have known things were going _ too _ well. His luck always struck at the worst of times, and things had been going well for too long. He liked his classes (Defense wasn't… _ too _ bad), he had figured out how to get Lockhart to leave him alone (tell him he had something in his teeth), and he had more friends than he had ever had before in his whole _ life. _

Then, on October 10th, Ms. Norris was found hanging from her tail, tacked to the wall and stiff as a board. The floor of the hallway was covered in puddles, and the wall she was on was covered in what Harry could only hope was red paint, which read, _ ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE, THE BEAST OF THE CHAMBER IS FREE! _

Harry felt a chill when he heard the words. 

Immediately after Ms. Norris was found, every student was gathered up and brought to their common rooms, where they were told to stay put, on pain of a month’s worth of detentions and loss of 50 house points. Nobody, in Gryffindor at least, was willing to risk it, and so they all sat in the common room, talking in hushed whispers.

They weren't there long when the portrait hole opened. Ginny climbed through, McGonagall behind her. Ginny immediately rushed over to them, wedging herself between Ron and Harry. She was pale, and when Harry grabbed her hand comfortingly, he noticed it was cold, and that she had a little bit of red at the very base of her cuticles. 

Ron, who was in the process of wrapping his Gryffindor scarf around Ginny's neck, asked her the question that was likely on everyone's mind. 

"You weren't caught out of the common room, were you?" Hermione elbowed him in the side, but Ginny was already shaking her head. 

"No. I was lost. The… Charms corridor, I think, because Flitwick found me, and delivered me to McGonagall, who took me here. She wouldn't answer any of my questions, but I… don't know how I got to where I was…" Ginny trails off, and the three of them exchange worried glances over her head. Before they can ask what she means, McGonagall addresses them all. 

"As some of you may have heard, Ms. Norris was found petrified and strung up, and the wall behind her was painted with a menacing message. We are not taking this lightly, as this may be a serious threat," a few people gasped at this. "That is no reason to be afraid. We will be enforcing rules to keep all of you safe, and they may seem harsh, but our priority, first and foremost, is to keep the lot of you safe. Anyone who does not follow these rules, will lose 75 house points, serve detentions for the remainder of the year, and be put on academic probation. Do _ not _ take these new rules lightly." McGonagall stared out at them, meeting their eyes. 

Everyone was frozen, staring back. Even the Twins were still, standing like statues next to each other, behind their siblings on the couch in front of them, a hand on Harry and Hermione's shoulders. McGonagall waved her wand, and a rolled parchment popped into existence in front of her, then unfurled. 

"Absolutely _ no one _ will go _ anywhere _ by themselves. Students will travel between classes by year, and a teacher rotation chart will be drawn up so that every group of students will travel between classes with a teacher. Free periods will be spent inside your house. Houses will travel to and from meals together, at 7:30 am. Students may go to the library, at 7:30 each night, where those who wish to go will be accompanied by a teacher. Weekends will have set times to go outside as a House. Quidditch matches are indefinitely postponed. Classes will be postponed tomorrow. Prefects, you will report to me tomorrow as a group, where you will be given a list of defensive spells that you should memorize." McGonagall looked over them as she finished, and her face softened. 

"We will catch the perpetrator. There is no need for fear, but it is safer to take this threat seriously than allow it to go unnoticed. If anyone has any questions, concerns, or just needs to talk, my office is _ always _open." With that, McGonagall stuck the parchment next to the portrait hole, and exited the common room. There was a moment of silence before the room burst into chatter. 

"Wow," said Harry. "They're taking this really seriously. How do they know it's not just someones twisted idea of a prank?"

"Oh, little Harry-kins hasn't heard of the Heir!" George said from behind them. 

"Quite right, dear brother, quite right." Said Fred, nodding. 

"The Heir?" Asked Hermione, turning to look at the Twins. They both nodding vigorously, before walking around the couch to sit in front of the four of them. 

"Now, this is all based off of rumors and speculation, but as we all know-"

"the Hogwarts Rumor Mill always has a kernel of truth to it. Rumor is, someone in the school is a direct descendant of-"

"Salazar Slytherin, and they have a lair hidden somewhere in the school, called the-"

"- Chamber of Secrets." They finished in unison. 

"The Chamber of Secrets?" Hermione asked. "_ Hogwarts: A History _never said anything about a chamber…"

"That's because no one has ever been able to access it, you have to speak a magical language-"

"Called Parseltongue, to be able to open it."

"Parseltongue?" Asked Harry. This time, it was Ron who answered. 

"It's when you can speak to snakes."

Harry felt himself go pale. 

"Oh." he managed. 

"Harry?" Asked Ginny in concern. 

"I… I think _ I _might be a Parseltongue." 

"But… I thought only Dark Wizards spoke Parseltongue!" Ron exclaimed, looking at Harry with wide eyes. Hermione elbowed Ron in the side again. 

"Oh honestly, Ronald, how can a _ language _ be attributed to Dark Wizards? Don't be daft. Anyways, Harry, how do you know for sure that you can speak to snakes? Are you sure you weren't imagining it?" 

Harry paused, before shrugging. 

"Maybe. It's happened a few times over the years. I used to come across snakes when I was working in the garden, and when I whispered to them, I could _ swear _ they'd whisper back, before something scared them off. Then this one time, i was at the zoo, and I accidentally vanished the glass, and when the snake slid past me, I could've _ sworn _ he said "thanks amigo," but I could've imagined it." Hermione looked at him pensively. 

"Well," said Fred, grinning. 

"Only one way to find out." Finished George, also grinning. The two of them stood up, grabbed Harry's hands, and pulled him off the couch. They practically charged up the stairs to their dorm room, Harry, Ginny, Hermione, and Ron trailing after them. Once in the room. They watched as George dug around in his trunk, before pulling out a length of string about three inches long. Fred fished his wand out of his trousers, before turning to George. 

"_ in colubrum, _right?"

George nodded, and Fred raised his wand and performed that very spell. Before their very eyes, they watched as the string was transfigured into a small, white snake. When George held out his hands, Harry stepped forward, scooping the still slightly-cottony snake into his own hands. He gave the assembled group an unsure look, but they waved their hands at him as if to say, _ go on! _He brought the snake up to eye level. 

"_ Hello _ ," he whispered. " _ I'm Harry. Who are you _?"

Off to the side, Harry heard gasps, but ignored them. In his hands, the little white snake had risen up, looking him squarely in the eyes.

"_Hello, speaker._ _I am Aziraphale. Do you have any rats?" _

Harry looked at his friends, because he sure didn't have any rats. They all looked back at him with wide eyes, and he looked at them expectantly. 

"Well?" He asked. "Do any of you guys?"

"Harry," Hermione said softly, "we can't understand it."

"Her," Harry corrected absently, "She, um...she wants a rat."

"_ Please." _Hissed Aziraphale pleasantly.

"Please." Harry translated. Still staring at him, one of the twins dug through his pocket until he came up with a packet of candy, which he handed to Harry. Harry looked at the package. _ Ice Mice, _it said, in sparkling letters. Harry held the package up to Aziraphale for inspection, and the snake's little pink tongue flicked out, tasting the air. 

"_ Yes please." _She said, and this time, Harry could hear the slight hiss in the words. 

Harry turned his hand so Aziraphale could slide down his wrist and wrap herself around it, and with his now-free hand, opened the wrapper to the candy, and grabbed the wriggling figure by the tail. As he lifted it from the package, Aziraphale lifted her head off of Harry's wrist and opened her mouth wide, allowing Harry to drop the candy in whole. With one big gulp, the candy disappeared into Aziraphale's mouth, causing a bulge to appear just behind her head. Despite having very little face to express herself with, Aziraphale looked very pleased.

"Well," said Ginny into the ensuing quiet. "Guess that answers that."

_______________________

  


By the time dinner rolled around, Harry was itching to get out of the Common Room. He had never done well in confined spaces, and everyone else's agitation was stifling him. When McGonagall opened the portrait to lead them to dinner, Harry was first through, practically leaping through the hole in the wall. 

Besides getting out of the room, Harry was excited to show Luna his new friend. He knew she loved animals, and he knew she would love Aziraphale. Aziraphale must have been able to scent his excitement, because she was happily hissing softly from her place across his shoulders, beneath his robes. 

McGonagall led the way to the Great Hall, the stream of Gryffindors trailing behind her. Harry felt as if the corridors should feel different, knowing that a beast could be lurking right around the corner. 

But Harry had faced monsters before-- lived with them, in fact. He felt much more confident in facing this danger with his friends at his back. 

The Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables were already full when they entered the Great Hall, so Harry figured that Slytherin probably had the farthest dorms, after them. Harry made a beeline straight for Ravenclaw table, where Luna was sitting at the end, alone. Ginny, Hermione, and Ron followed after him. He sat down beside Luna as soon as he reached the table. She had sat with them at the Gryffindor table before, so Harry didn't think it was too big of a deal for them to sit with her.

"Luna!" He said excitedly. "I have someone amazing for you to meet, you're going to _ love _her-"

"What are you doing sitting at the Ravenclaw table? And with Loony, of all people?" Asked an older girl a few seats down. Harry noticed for the first time that Luna wasn't just sitting by herself, everyone seemed to be avoiding sitting near her. A bolt of anger shot through him. 

"_ Loony?" _He said icily. Aziraphale tensed on his shoulder. The girl didn't seem to notice his tone, and gestured offhandedly at Luna beside him. 

"I don't know why you'd break the rules for _ her _ of all people. She's so barmy she can't even keep track of her shoes." The girl snickered rudely, and the others around her watching the situation tittered. Harry's hand gripped the edge of the table so hard it felt as if it would splinter in his grip. 

"Hermione." Harry says, in a voice of quiet danger. His friends all straightened up. "There aren't any rules against sitting at different house tables are there?" 

"No."

"And even if there were, I wouldn't hesitate to sit here with _ Luna, _ so that she wouldn't be forced to share air with _ you _ lot. And if her things don't show up in her dorm tonight and _ stay there _ , you'll be missing a lot more than _ shoes." _

The older girl had two spots of color high on her cheeks. The look in her eyes was afraid, but she had a stubborn set to her mouth.

"Yeah? What's a little firstie like you gonna do to me?"

Harry flashed her a sharp grin, and those around them recoiled. He placed his hands on the table and pushed himself into standing. He hissed quietly under his breath, and Aziraphale slid out from inside his robe, straightening up into the air. People turned to look as he stood, and gasped when they saw the snake rising on his shoulder.

The girl turned very pale, and stood from her seat, before darting to the opposite end of the table. Her friends followed after, and Harry stood from the table, moving to dust off his robes. 

"_ Well," _ he said. " _ I think that went well, don't you?" _His friends looked at him blankly, and before he could correct himself, Luna spoke.

"Oh! You're a Parselmouth?" Harry nodded, and began to open his mouth to tell Luna that that's why he wanted her to meet Aziraphale, when someone screamed. Harry whipped around to see a young Hufflepuff girl at the table behind him pointing dead at him.

"Potter's a Parselmouth!" She cried in fear. A ripple of murmurs went through the Great Hall, and Harry heard snippets of conversations.

"-_ couldn't be the heir, could he? I mean-" _

_ "He'll set that snake on _ us _ next!" _

_ "Who would've thought the Boy-Who-Lived would side with You-Know-Who?" _

_ "Only Dark Wizards can speak Parseltongue!" _

Harry watched in horror as hordes of students turned to look at him with fear and disgust. 

"You're not welcome at this table!" Jeered someone from further down the Ravenclaw table. Harry backed away from the table as if in a daze, feeling like he’d been struck, and his friends follow after him. 

He stumbled his way over to the Gryffindor table, his mind shutting down, back to small spaces, dark rooms, _ crushing blows, caved stomach, so so thirsty, please let me out… _

He was knocked from his mind by someone at the end of the Gryffindor table, standing and crossing their arms. He wasn't sure of their name, but he was sure he'd seen them before, they were 5th year, weren't they? Harry's mind seemed to wander off without him for a moment, but when he came back, he noticed he was being sat at his house table, Percy behind him, gently pushing him onto the seat. Fred and George were on opposite sides of the table, shuffling people down the bench, and then placing themselves between Harry and his friends like protective bookends, despite the outcries of "_ house traitors!" _coming from them. 

The Slytherins chose that moment to enter the Great Hall, and before them on the tables dinner appeared. Harry vaguely registered Luna, to his left, speaking in quiet tones to Aziraphale. Hermione, on his other side, piling food onto his plate. Some small part of his brain must have registered food (--_ don't let them take it from you eat what you can don't let them see so hungry please don't hurt me it hurts--) _because he took bites of his food, chewed, swallowed, and didn't taste a thing. Across from him, Ginny, Ron, Fred, George, and Percy all stared at him with identical expressions of concern that he'd seen on Mrs. Weasley's face so many times before. Harry choked on a hysterical laugh at the thought, and across from him all the Weasley's brows furrowed further.

Harry took a sip of his pumpkin juice in order to keep himself from laughing again and ended up choking on it. After a moment of coughing, he tilted his head back to try and get a clear breath of air, and Harry's eye caught on the ceiling above them. He'd always loved the sky, loved the shade on a beautiful summer day. He always thought to himself that if he had a room, he would paint his walls that very color. He didn't notice anyone trying to get his attention until Aziraphale nipped his ear lightly. He jerked his head downwards in surprise, and found Luna's hand on his arm, tapping a beat steadily onto his forearm. 

_ Tap, tap, tap. _

"Are you alright, Harry?"

_ Tap, tap, tap. _

"Bloody hell mate, what are you doing?"

_ Tap, tap, tap. _

"Don't listen to them, Harry, they're just believing in the prejudices they were raised on."

_ Tap, tap, tap. _

"Will you tell Aziraphale something for me?" 

Harry latched onto that, and struggled to turn his head and look at Luna. His head felt as if it would tip off his shoulder, it was so heavy; but at the same time, Harry felt as if he was only just barely keeping it from floating away. 

Harry nodded, feeling as though his head was bouncing. 

"Say… what?" He croaked out. Luna smiled brightly at him.

"Will you ask him if he would like a rattle? I rather think he would look loads more menacing if he had a rattle to shake at people." Harry blinked at her in confusion, trying to focus his sluggish tongue into movement.

"Menacing?" 

"Well, if they're going to call you the heir, you might as well embrace it. Whenever they call me Loony, I make sure to bug out my eyes real big." She did so, and Harry giggled. Luna smiled, pleased with herself. 

Across from him, the Weasley's shoulder’s dropped as a unit, united in their relief. Hermione pushed another roll onto his plate, thinking she was subtle, and Harry took a slow bite, savoring the sweet taste. 

_______________________

  


Despite the curfews and rules in place, by mid-November there was another petrification. Nearly Headless Nick was found floating in the air, solid as glass, a message painted on the wall behind him. _ BLINK AND YOU'LL MISS IT _.

If Harry had thought everyone was being hostile before, that was _ nothing _compared to now. Despite the fact that he couldn’t seem to walk two steps without seeing a teacher, his things were never where he left him, and he found himself the subject of stinging hexes more than once. 

His friends, luckily, stood solidly by his side. Ron and Hermione bickered like normal, helped him with homework, played chess with him, and overall just helped him not to focus so strongly on the hatred and fear radiating from everyone else in the common room. Luna would bring him different flowers and tinctures to rub on his throat, carry around, or leave under his pillow. She said that they would help ward off evil intent, and Harry was more than grateful for them.

Ginny, on the other hand, did a different kind of warding. Ginny could return a stinging hex with tenfold the pain originally delivered, and Harry would wager her glare was even more poisonous, despite her pale demeanor. Harry was grateful that despite whatever anxieties she had about the situation, she never stopped standing by him. 

The teachers were grim-faced, and Harry wished fiercely that they would catch the culprit already. While he knew that even this grim, grey Hogwarts was better than the Dursleys, he couldn’t help but feel as if his idyllic, gold trimmed view of Hogwarts was slipping through his fingers. He couldn’t rest here, he always had to watch his back-- he wasn’t even safe in his own House! It was a feeling Harry was intimately familiar with, and hadn’t missed a bit. 

_______________________

  


Two weeks later, Harry was really regretting ever thinking anything untowards about Hogwarts.

McGonagall stuck the notice on the wall, right next to the one of the rules for coming and going within Hogwarts. Harry watched in numb shock as she climbed out of the portrait hole. All around him, he could hear the surprised whispers.

“_ I heard they were considering shutting down the school, but I didn’t think they’d actually do it!” _

_ “Aw, damn, now my Mum is gonna bother me the whole break about my schoolwork.” _

_ “A Basilisk! We’re lucky no one's been killed yet.” _

_ “Bet Potter’s not surprised, probably all part of his master plan.” _

“Well,” said Ron. “It’s only for break. At least they’ll have this whole mess sorted out by the time we come back.”

“I’m glad the teachers have figured it out, an hour a day in the library is simply barbaric.” Hermione replies. Harry tried to shake himself from his numb shock.

“I just… don’t understand why we have to go back to our _ own _houses.” Harry finally managed. 

“Probably so that even Muggle parents can get the news if they catch the Basilisk,” Hermione said. “And besides, they probably figure we all need some time away from each other. I mean, we’ve all been cooped up with each other for weeks. I’ll be glad to have a little time to myself.” 

“Yeah,” Harry said quietly, thinking of the cupboard under the stairs, “time to myself.” 


	2. 2: Christmas at the Dursley's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry arrives at the Dursley's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please heed the tags!!!!! nothing too graphic, but i'm just warning you to watch your step please! apologies for the short chapter, this was just a good cutting off place (:

Harry swallowed shakily, looking down at the plate of steaming breakfast foods in front of him. He knew he should eat, as it was probably the last warm, filling meal he would get until he came back to school in January. But despite knowing he  _ should  _ eat it, Harry couldn’t manage to convince himself to swallow a bite of food into his churning stomach. 

Back to the Dursley’s.

Back to the cold cupboard, empty stomach, aching hands. Harry shivered, and Aziraphale, who was curled around his warm teacup, raised her head at him in concern. Harry felt a pang go through his stomach.  _ Aziraphale.  _ God, what was he thinking, he couldn’t take her to the Dursley’s! If they found out he had a snake with him, they’d hurt Aziraphale. Harry couldn’t let that happen. 

“Luna!” Harry said a bit desperately, leaning around Hermione to see the other girl. She looked up in surprise from where she had been carefully swirling two different jams on her toast.

“Yes?”

“Could you take care of Aziraphale for me over the break? My aunt and uncle don’t like pets, and Ron’s already taking Hedwig, and I don’t know anyone else who could take her.” he said quickly. Luna smiled at him. 

“Of course, Harry. Would you let her know that she’ll be welcome to find her own field mice, so long as she’s back every night so I know she’s alright?” 

Harry nodded and passed the message on to Aziraphale. She stared at him with dark eyes.

“ _ Why can’t I go with you?” _

“ _ My aunt and uncle can’t stand me, I can’t imagine they’d be much kinder to you.” _

_ “Will  _ you  _ be alright, Speaker?” _

_ “I’ll have to be. Don’t really have any other choice, do I?”  _ Harry shrugged.

Aziraphale hissed indignantly, but there wasn’t much else she could do. 

  
  


_______________________

  
  
  


Upon catching sight of Harry at the station, his uncle turned that particular shade of red and purple that only Harry could seem to make him turn. Harry supposed that he probably wasn’t too happy to see him, as always.

“ _ Now _ , boy. Get a move on. I’ve got more important things to do than collect  _ your  _ sorry arse from the train station.” Uncle Vernon grabbed him by the already-stretched collar of Dudley’s old shirt, and Harry avoided looking in the direction of the happy reunion both Hermione and Ron were surely having with their families. In doing so, he missed the lingering concerned glances from his friends.

Harry was dragged to the car, where Uncle Vernon immediately wedged himself into the driver’s seat, leaving Harry to hoist his trunk into the boot of the car by himself. He had planned ahead though, leaving all his quills, parchment, robes, and other things he wouldn’t need at the Dursley’s in his dormitory-- which was pretty much everything but his muggle clothes. Uncle Vernon had locked all his things in his cupboard last summer, and threatened to snap Harry’s wand. Harry didn’t want to risk that happening again, what with Hogwarts springing him on his relatives with very little warning. Harry had no way of gauging what sort of mood his Uncle would be in, and he was glad now that he had left all his things safely at Hogwarts. 

Harry closed the trunk, and slid quietly into the backseat of his uncle’s car, where Dudley was sitting (read: sulking) still in his Smeltings uniform.

“I can’t believe the freak is here to ruin Christmas. I don’t want Santa to skip our house because  _ he’s  _ here!” Dudley pouted. Aunt Petunia, in the passenger seat up front, cooed pityingly.

“Oh, poor baby Diddy-dums. Don’t worry, I won’t let that evil little freak ruin your lovely holiday! He’ll be locked away, Santa won’t even know he’s there!”

Santa was the one bit of magic that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon allowed in the house, if only because of the truly catastrophic fit Dudley had thrown several years back. Even at age 6, Dudley had known just how to trick his parents into giving him exactly what he wanted, even though it didn’t take much. Dudley had taken one look at his presents, all labelled  _ From Mummy and Daddy  _ and  _ screamed  _ at the top of his fat little lungs, so loudly that Harry had heard every single word loud and clear from where he was locked up in the cupboard. Dudley had cried and screamed, inconsolable, about how he wasn’t naughty, why did Santa not bring him any presents? Aunt Petunia had scrambled to assure her Precious Little Angel that of  _ course  _ he was on the nice list! Santa just wanted to make sure that Dudley only had the very best presents, so he was saving him for last stop on his list, and would be delivering his presents the very next day!

Harry scoffed from where he lay, staring up at the slanted ceiling in his cupboard. He knew for a fact that Piers had told Dudley,  _ last year _ , the truth about Santa-- that he was actually their Mummys and Daddys. He knew that Dudley only pretended to believe in Santa so that he could get twice as many presents from his parents. 

And even still at age 11, Dudley kept up the charade, ensuring twice the number of presents even a spoiled brat like him should get. Aunt Petunia ate up the innocent, naive act, believing that her Precious Little Angel was just too sweet to grow up. The whole act disgusted Harry, who had only received a handful of presents in his whole life. 

_ If anything, _ he thought angrily,  ** _you’re _ ** _ on the naughty list.  _

Almost like he could hear Harry’s thoughts, Dudley smacked Harry on the temple with his damned smelting stick. Harry felt a flash of anger go through him, but ultimately ignored both his impulse to grab the stick from Dudley’s hands and toss it from the car, and Uncle Vernon’s snide comment from the front about how Dudley was  _ such a man, to show that little runt what’s good.  _

When they arrived at Privet Drive, Uncle Vernon popped the boot, and without looking at him said, “Into the cupboard.”

Harry trudged round the car, and heaved his trunk from the boot, barely dodging out of the way to have his toes smashed. He dragged his trunk across the pavement, knowing that if he even thought of stepping one foot on the lawn Uncle Vernon would have his hide. He ignored the scraping of the tough leather on concrete, figuring he’d just ask Hermione to cast a  _ reparo  _ on it when he returned to Hogwarts. Finally, after he had dragged it up the last of the stairs, he began to push it toward the cupboard, where Uncle Vernon was standing and holding the door to it open impatiently. When Harry moved to push his trunk into the cupboard, his uncle struck him across the back of the head with one big, meaty hand, sending him staggering.

“Not the trunk, you idiot,  _ you!  _ I won’t have you ruining my holiday.” 

Harry looked at him in disbelief.  _ Him?  _ He hadn’t been locked in his cupboard in over a year, not since he first got his Hogwarts letter addressed to  _ Mr. H Potter, cupboard under the stairs.  _

After a moment, he realized his uncle was serious, and he gulped. He had avoided small spaces with everything he could since the last time he had been in there, and now here he was, being locked back in. He could hardly believe his luck. He wondered idly, in some disconnected part of his brain, if surviving the killing curse left you with a lifetime of bad luck-- like breaking a mirror. 

He trudged into his cupboard, trying to summon some of the same courage he had felt when facing Quirrell last year. Funnily enough, he felt much more like he was marching towards his death now than he had then. 

Before he made it all the way into the cupboard, his uncle slammed the door, knocking Harry forward and causing him to smash his face into the wall. He heard a very distinctive  _ snap!,  _ and knew that the delicate bridge of his wire-rimmed glasses had snapped. He sighed, and plopped carefully onto the ratty cot, focusing on the pain instead of his rising panic. Despite the fact that Harry hadn’t been in there in months, everything was exactly as he had left it, minus the layer of dust over everything. Like they had left it waiting for him, knowing he would eventually get himself locked in here again.

The thought sent a cold shot of dread down into his stomach.  _ Why are you surprised?  _ He asked himself angrily.  _ You know you’ll never be free of the Dursley’s. Dumbledore doesn’t care that you’re here. You’re the bloody Boy-Who-Lived, everyone would laugh if you told them that a couple of Muggles got the best of you. _

Harry rolled over on the cot, and pulled the ratty blanket over the little bit of his body it covered, trying to force himself to stop thinking. It didn’t work.

  
  


_______________________

  
  
  


The first full day of Harry’s Christmas break, he counted himself lucky. He had been woken at an indiscernible (but assuredly horrendously early) time by his aunt rapping sharply on the door. Harry had only a second to gather himself before the latch was undone, and the door was wrenched open, blinding Harry for a moment by the flood of sunlight entering the tiny space. Aunt Petunia tossed a small stack of burnt and stale pieces of toast at him, and set a glass of water in the cupboard just inside the door, slopping a quarter of the water onto the floor. Harry looked at the sad pieces of toast, and remembered the very first time Aunt Petunia had said to him  _ Freaks don’t get good food!  _ after he had asked for breakfast. 

“I don’t wanna hear from you again today, brat. Make it last.”

She slammed the door shut before Harry could even think to reply, and Harry stared at it for a moment. 

_ Ok,  _ he thought to himself (naively, in hindsight),  _ Aunt Petunia gave me  _ more  _ than enough food and water for the day, so as long as I’m quiet… _

Harry grinned to himself. He may not like it in the cupboard, but it was better than endless chores and Uncle Vernon’s wrath. If they left him like this the whole holidays, surviving the Dursley’s would be easier than Harry thought it would be. 

  
  


_______________________

  
  
  


Looking back on those thoughts, Harry could have smacked himself. How could he have been so naive as to think the Dursley’s would let him off that easily?

Aunt Petunia had given him that bread and water, and while Harry knew better than to eat it all, under the impression he would get more or not, three pieces of toast were not enough to sustain even  _ him  _ for three days. And his water had run out the second.

To Harry’s utter mortification, he had had to relieve himself in the cup Aunt Petunia had brought him. And then again, later, in the corner. He felt like an animal-- trapped, foul-smelling, and dirty. The heat and smell of the cupboard were suffocating, and every time Harry breathed he felt as if he was swallowing one of Neville’s botched potions. 

Harry nestled himself deeper into the corner furthest from his mess, as if he could escape the stench. From experience, he knew he could not.

Just as Harry was slipping off into sleep, the tell-tale  _ snick  _ of the cupboard latch startled him into awareness. The door to the cupboard slammed open, knocking into the wall behind it. The long-dead lightbulb that hung from a string above Harry’s head swayed at the motion. Out of the small opening, Harry could see Uncle Vernon, face purple. A vein popped out on his forehead when he caught sight of Harry, and he wrenched out a thick, meaty hand, grabbing Harry by the front of his shirt.

The force of Uncle Vernon’s pull sent Harry flying, and he barely managed to catch himself, landing in a crouch. He looked warily to where Vernon was struggling to get back onto his feet, and took the precious few moments he had been granted to both mentally steel himself and pull a contrite expression onto his face. Uncle Vernon liked it best when he begged for forgiveness. 

By the time Uncle Vernon managed to make it to his feet, Harry had managed to lock himself away in the back of his mind. It was a technique that he had learned through 11 years at the Dursleys, and it had served him well. Tucked away in the back of his mind he could ignore the pain, and the insults, and anything else Uncle Vernon had to throw at him-- literally or physically. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may notice that harry doesn't do much introspective thinking at the dursley's, and you would be right. i wanted to get across the feeling of stifled and dry and just,, awfulness in any way that i could
> 
> tumblr: V-ennat  
pllleeaasseee comment and leave a kudos! i reply to every comment i can (:
> 
> next chapter should be out the 28th! ill be in college by then, so i may space out updates more if it looks like i'll have a hard time writing around classes (i have fridays off tho, so besides work i should have time to write!)


	3. 3: Christmas at Hogwarts part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heed!!!! the!!!!! tags!!!!!
> 
> had my first day of college today, and it actually went pretty ok? my comms teacher calls the class a "family" which is just kinda uncomfy, and my 3rd and last class of the day got cancelled. could've been worse. here's a chapter a day early to celebrate (:

It wasn’t until much later that Harry came back to himself, lying stiffly on his front inside his cupboard. As he breathed in the foul stench of the air, he felt the skin pulling at his back, and knew that Uncle Vernon had pulled out the belt again. He winced as he sat himself up, and tried not to cry out as he felt his skin splitting open again. He’d rather not, but he knew from experience that laying on bruised ribs made them much, much worse.

His stomach rumbled, his head ached, his throat felt like sandpaper, and there was absolutely nothing Harry could do about any of those things. He wished fiercely that the Heir Of Slytherin hadn’t attacked their school, that he could be back in Gryffindor common room, enjoying a wonderful Christmas with his friends. 

As Harry gingerly leant his shoulder against the wall, he couldn’t help but feel sad. He rarely allowed himself the luxury of lamenting over his terrible lot in life, but sitting in the darkness, alone, after months of living in fear at a place he had learnt to call home, Harry felt that if someone were to peek into his heart, it would be as dark as the small space he occupied.

Harry wished once more, desperately, for the Dursleys to cease to exist, for Hogwarts to be safe, Fred and George to come rescue him again--  _ anything.  _

But as Harry sat in the dark, he knew that no one would be coming to rescue him from the Dursleys. 

He closed his eyes and forced himself to sleep.

  
  
  


_______________________

  
  
  


For once, just  _ once,  _ Harry wished his luck would hold out. His relatives hadn’t given him any warning as to what was going on. That morning, Uncle Vernon had reached into the cupboard, pulled out Harry, pointed to his trunk and gestured for him to follow, before heading out the front door. Harry, bleary eyed but alert, had grabbed his trunk and pulled it after him as he followed a suspiciously-gleeful Uncle Vernon to the car. As much as he suspected that Uncle Vernon was going to try and pull one over on him, he knew better than to ask questions.

Harry’s vision went gray on the edges as he hoisted his trunk into the boot of his uncle’s car. He had been locked in the Cupboard for who knows how long, and movement was making him feel sick. He allowed himself a second to breath before slamming the boot shut and scrambling into the backseat of the car, ignoring the buzzing in his head and heaviness to his limbs as Uncle Vernon began driving. 

About 30 minutes into the drive, Harry realized they were heading towards London. Up front, his uncle was muttering to himself, and smiling like a lunatic. Harry wisely kept his mouth shut, and focused on keeping his still-angry back from touching the seats. It seemed like in no time at all, Uncle Vernon was stopping violently, sending Harry flying into the passenger’s seat in front of him (Uncle Vernon didn’t allow him to ‘sully’ the seatbelt by wearing it). Harry looked out the window and realized with a jolt that they were at King’s Cross. 

What? No way Harry had been in his cupboard the entirety of break, so surely it wasn’t yet time for his uncle to deliver him to the station? 

Uncle Vernon, still looking entirely too pleased for Harry’s comfort, twisted around to look at Harry. He thrust a letter into Harry’s hands, and he knew immediately it was from the wizarding world, because it was on thick, heavy parchment. 

Harry went to open it before his Uncle popped the boot and bellowed, “ _ Out!” _

Harry crawled across the seats and tumbled out of the car, feeling as if movement should be impossible. He wished desperately for just a drink of water, or a bite of food. But he knew he would get neither with the Dursleys, so he hefted himself to his feet.

He tugged him trunk from the boot and closed it, dragging himself and his things up onto the curb. Uncle Vernon didn’t spare him another glance, and peeled away in a squeal of tires and a cloud of exhaust. Harry coughed, and plopped down to sit on the lid of his trunk, slightly in shock.

His uncle may have threatened it many times, but Harry never actually thought that he’d just  _ leave him  _ in London. 

He looked down at the letter in his hand in confusion. But then-- why had he given whatever this was to Harry? Curiosity overcoming his despair momentarily, Harry unfolded the parchment.

_ To the Parents/Guardians of Mr. H. Potter, Cupboard Under the Stairs, Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey: _

_ We are pleased to inform you that Hogwarts has been restored to safety, and has been inspected and cleared by both the Ministry of Magic and Headmaster Dumbledore himself. As such, students are free to return to Hogwarts early on December 20th, or wait until January 7th as originally planned. If your student will be returning early, please send a return owl to Hogwarts as soon as possible, and have your child board the train on Platform 9 ¾ on December 20th promptly, as the train will be leaving at 11am. Thank you for your patience and cooperation. _

_ Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor House, _

_ Minerva McGonagall _

  
  


Harry stared at the paper for a moment, letting the letter sink in. At first, he was ecstatic. Getting free of the Dursleys early! This was the best Christmas present he could have ever wished for. But after a moment, he realized that this might actually be worse than staying with the Dursleys. 

Because he was there for such a short period of time, they really didn’t have any chance to do any real damage to Harry. Usually a summer spent working and locked in his cupboard left him looking small, tired, and emaciated. But the Dursleys had devised a system to keep all suspicion off them and their perfectly normal way of life. For the last week or so of the past few summers, Harry would be locked away in his cupboard-- but not permanently. They brought him consistent, if small, meals, which helped soften the jutting, sunken look of his starved face; they let him out regularly to use the loo and wash himself, and left him without many more chores than cooking, so that he gained back his strength enough to pretend he was fine. It was a cruel system, but one Harry had come to appreciate upon his arrival to Hogwarts. He knew no one would ever truly help him, so it was easier when they didn’t bother with pointless questions. Besides, not having to look at his pale, skeletal reflection helped him push the Dursleys as far out of mind as he could manage.

But now, they were given no warning, but the ability to dump Harry off onto someone else and enjoy their holiday freak-free. Harry, still dizzy with hunger pains, sore from his beating, and smelly from 5 days in the cupboard, would have to find a way to hide this from everyone at Hogwarts.

He sighed. 

Nothing could ever seem to go his way, could it?

_______________________

  
  
  


Luckily for Harry, none of his friends had come back to Hogwarts any earlier than they had planned to. He tried not to feel jealous of them, at home with families who wanted them.

He leaned his head against the rattling glass window, the cool of it soothing his aching head. As long as no one asked him any questions once he was at Hogwarts, he would be safe. Based on the fact that the few people who had peeked into his compartment had run as soon as they had seen him, Harry figured he was pretty much in the clear. For once this Heir business was working in his favor. 

Harry pulled his large t-shirt tighter around himself, shivering despite the warmth of the compartment.

After one last first year had looked into his compartment and ran away squeaking in fear, no one had bothered him the rest of the journey.

He climbed into a carriage by himself, and as soon as the door clicked shut, some invisible force began to pull it to the castle. There were probably only 10 carriages in total, and Harry figured that most people would rather stay home with their families, and he wondered if anyone else in these carriages was just as lonely as he was. 

The thought was quickly washed from his head by a wave of bone-gnawing hunger, so strong that Harry doubled over, gasping in pain. He breathed in and out deeply, willing the hunger pains to pass before they arrived back at the castle. Thankfully, they passed after just a few moments, the carriage pulling to a stop a few minutes later. Harry gathered himself, and slid gingerly from the carriage.

As he began the trek up the stairs towards the castle, at the back of a small gaggle of students, he wished fervently for his robes. Harry knew they weren’t a requirement over break, but Dudley’s ratty trousers (so big on Harry that they were pants rather than short trousers.) and stretched, holey t-shirt looked sorely out of place among the group of children, all of whom had coats, gloves, and hats for the harsh Scotland winter. And besides, Harry had to leave them here for fear that Uncle Vernon would destroy them. Harry tucked his arms into his sleeves and shoved down his shame, trudging on. 

When they came to the entrance, Snape was standing in the doorway, backlit by the flickering torches in the hall, sending his features into sharp relief. The man’s eyes skirted over the group, looking as if he was doing a headcount. His eyes caught on Harry for a long moment, inquisitive and appraising. Harry stared back, and for a second, it almost felt as if someone had brushed their hand briefly across his forehead, before Snape had looked away and began to usher students in through the doorway. 

“Welcome back. Good to see that all of you have managed to get yourselves here in one piece.” As the students passed by him, Snape was waving his wand at them, one at a time. The snow disappeared off of the students with each flick of his wand. “Head to the Great Hall, dinner will be served shortly.” 

Harry stepped up to him, the last of the students to do so. Snape once again looked him right in the eye, as cool and indifferent as he had always been to Harry.

The man had never once, in Harry's year and a half of school at Hogwarts, said a single word more to him than what was required. In Potion’s class, Harry would catch him watching from the front of his class, eyes cool and dark. Harry would always stare back, refusing to be intimidated, until his potion would begin to boil over from inattentiveness, which was when Snape would always sweep over and banish it without a word, before sweeping away again to praise Malfoy.

Snape was looking at him now the same way he usually did in class, and Harry felt that weird sensation again, as if someone was attempting to tickle his head with a feather. He reached up to scratch at where the feeling was beginning to prickle, and Snape broke eye contact to banish away the snow from Harry’s worn trainers. Immediately, Harry felt the odd feeling vanish, and as Snape waved his wand, he felt a blanket of warmth envelope him, and the small break in the bridge of his glasses snap back together. He looked up at his Professor in surprise.

“Thank you, sir.” Harry said quietly. Snape gave him one long, last glance, before inclining his head once and sweeping away towards the Great Hall, robes billowing dramatically behind him. Harry hurried to follow after

In the Great Hall, there was only one table set up. At the far end, the professors were all sat together, smiling and chatting amiably with each other. There were more professors here than Harry had seen last year over Christmas. He figured it was because they had been searching the castle for the Basilisk just days ago. 

Harry joined the rest of the students at the other end of the table, and though he sat by himself, the table was short enough for him to still be able to hear both the student’s and teacher’s conversations. As the students around him pulled Christmas crackers and greeted friends and teachers, Harry took the opportunity to study the teachers at the end of the table. They all looked as if they had undone their laces. Harry saw casual robes and casual slacks, and McGonagall even had her hair down! Snape, it seemed, was the only teacher who had not deviated from the norm. He wore his usual dark robes, high collared and severe. But despite his best efforts, it seemed that the good mood was even infecting  _ him.  _ McGonagall was smiling at him, and saying something in a low voice that Harry could not hear. Snape scowled, but it was lacking any of the severity it usually had, and Harry could tell from the other end of the table that his retort was biting and severe, but McGonagall just threw back her head and laughed, cheeks flushed bright from the glass of wine clutched in her hand. Before Harry had a chance to observe any more of their interaction, food appeared across the table. 

Harry felt dizzy at the sudden appearance. HIs vision had been spotty and grey for hours, and he still felt lightheaded, and as if he was disconnected from his body, floating somewhere above it. Despite all of this, his mouth watered at the smell and sight of the food in front of him. 

Though no less impressive, there were far fewer options than usual-- but to Harry’s aching stomach, it looked like the best meal he had ever laid eyes on. With everyone else a few seats down, he had several platters in his vicinity all to himself, which he took ready advantage of, heady with anticipation and hunger. Harry grabbed blindly around him, filling his plate as fast as he could, before grabbing the food and shoving it into his mouth, ignoring his fork and knife entirely. 

As Harry shoved food into his mouth, hunched protectively over his plate, his mind was in an entirely different place. Much the same as with Uncle Vernon, it felt as if the rational part of his mind had been locked out of his head, banished with the rest of the sensation in his body-- everything other than  _ hunger.  _ That small, scared part of his head that sat quietly on his knees and begged politely for forgiveness as Uncle Vernon dealt blow after blow seemed to have taken charge of his faculties. Harry couldn’t bring himself to care, floating above it all as he scoffed the food in front of him. 

He missed the murmuring and pointing of the other students further down the table entirely. The teachers, on the other hand, noticed the student's not-so-sly attentiveness to the small figure at the end of the table, and many of them watched on in disgusted horror as the boy gobbled and gulped food like an animal. Harry was shoving in food so fast that it was unlikely he was chewing it. He paused only to take sloppy gulps from the goblet to the left of his plate, or to suck in a choking breath between monstrous bites.

Gravy slipped past his lips, dribbling off of his chin. Grease laden fingers were sucked on with a disgusting slurp heard from the other end of the table. Harry didn’t pause long enough to feel the eyes on him as he inhaled food as fast as he could, and his posture hid his plate from sight, leading the teachers to wonder if he even bothered to use it, or if he was just shoveling the food straight from the platter to his encrusted mouth on grubby fingers. He was eating like a starving man, but to almost every professor there, it looked as if the child had simply had an appalling lack of manners or basic human hygiene.

McGonagall, feeling as if she had been struck across the face, felt as if someone had spelled the alcohol straight from her system. She drew in an indignant breath to demand the child learn some basic respect for his surroundings and self, when Severus Snape, across the table from her, placed out a hand to stop her. She turned to ask him what in Merlin’s name he thought he was doing, when she caught sight of his face. The man wasn’t even looking at her, his eyes instead trained on the child at the end of the table. The expression on his face was… odd. It didn’t have an ounce of his usual hostility, and looked much more like intrigue, as if Harry was a particularly difficult puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out. Everyone around them had begun to lose interest, realizing that a boy with poor table manners, as appalling as the lack of them was, really wasn’t much more interesting than their own meals and drinks.

But then, right before her eyes, Minerva McGonagall witnessed…

Well, nothing short of a miracle. 

Severus Snape picked up the napkin spread neatly across his lap, and smoothly wrapped his cutlery in it, before gathering his goblet and his plate in his hands, too. He stood in one smooth motion, stepped around his now vacant chair, and brought his plate to the end of the table, where Harry Potter sat by himself, surrounded by the messy wreckage of several platters of food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'know who wasn't in any draft of this story originally? snape. but dear god he just barreled his way in here, because my love for mentor!snape fics outweighs my hatred for canon!snape (but don't worry, the main focus here is STILL golden trio & co. friendships!)
> 
> tumblr: @v-ennat
> 
> consider tipping me? i'm a broke college student: https://ko-fi.com/graceh
> 
> i reply to all comments! and kudos are writing fuel (; lmk what you think!!!
> 
> next chapter should be: september 10th, 2019
> 
> (btw, i really like this chapter. lots of fun stuff in this one. and lots of exposition!)


	4. 4: Christmas at Hogwarts part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more of Harry at Hogwarts over Christmas break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heeeeeeeeed the taaaaaaaaaags!! This is one of my favorite chapters. Also yes, I can, will, and did wax on for 10k about Christmas. I'm not sorry about it at all. There's 1 more xmas chapter after this, I do believe
> 
> just posted an umbrella academy one shot that i'm really proud of, please consider checking it out!
> 
> as always, dedicated to my muse @Dearestspaghetti

Harry looked up from his protective hunch to see Snape sitting across from him. He watched as the man spread his napkin across his lap, smoothing it over. He set his cutlery on his plate, fork and knife perched ever so delicately. He twisted his goblet around until the Hogwarts crest that was pressed into the front was facing him, and only once all those things were done did he look up at Harry. In a flash of embarrassment, Harry realized the mess he had made in his single-minded mission to consume every bit of food that he could get his hands on. He straightened up, cheeks blazing red, and scrambled to scrub his face and hands with the napkin still sat next to his plate, and after a moment of indecision, spread it across his lap like the man across from him.

As he did so, Snape watched, and it wasn’t until he picked up his fork and knife, for the first time that night, that the man did the same, resuming his meal. Harry, after a moment's hesitation, did the same, carefully slicing a bite-sized piece of the chunk of roast on his plate, laying in a haphazard pile of mashed potatoes, which had been hurriedly shoveled, just moments before, with his fingers. As Harry carefully bit down on the piece of juicy meat, Snape took a sip from his goblet, dabbed the corners of his lips with his napkin, and cleared his throat. Harry’s attention immediately snapped to him.

“Do you enjoy the food here at Hogwarts, Mr. Potter?” gazing at Snape warily, Harry hesitantly nodded. Snape nodded back, as if in agreement.

“Well, then, I should hope next time, you will show it the respect of using your cutlery.” Harry pinked again.

“Sorry, sir. I was just… really hungry.”

Snape leveled him with a long look.

“Light breakfast?” He asked carefully, in that same voice Aunt Petunia would use when trying to trick him into something. Harry shrugged.

“You could say that.”

Snape nodded again, and went back to his dinner. Harry, on the other hand, had begun to feel sick from all the food and how quickly he had eaten it, and he would have regretted it if he could remember anything that had made it past his lips in that haze of desperation and hunger. As Harry sat there, watching Snape chew bite after bite behind those thin, pale lips, he began to feel sicker and sicker, until he was sure he was going to throw up right across the smooth, aged wood of the table and all across Snape’s lap. 

“E-excuse me, sir.” Harry said, before standing quickly and rushing from the Great Hall. He felt the eyes on his back as he tried not to run, but knew from experience that no one would follow. As soon as he closed the door behind him, he broke into a run, clapping a hand over his mouth desperately and swallowing as hard as he could against the tide rising in his throat. 

Finally, a few feet ahead, he saw the entrance to the boys bathrooms, and ran faster. As he burst through the doors, he worried for a moment he wouldn't make it, but a moment later he was on his knees in front of the toilet, spewing the contents of his stomach. The undigested food slipped past his lips and hit the water with a splash, and the sight of it made him gag anew, vomiting again. He retched a few more times, until the only thing that came up was green, smelly bile, and he leaned back, breathing heavily.

He knew better than to eat so much after not getting any food for days. And so quickly, too! But the moment Harry had laid eyes on that food, the part of his brain that dealt with Uncle Vernon had come out-- grabbing the food, devouring it, protecting it from anyone who wanted to take it.

Harry got up onto his knees, after a few more moments of deep breathing, and flushed the toilet. Bracing his hands on the top of it, Harry pushed himself into standing, before heading over to the sink to rinse the foul taste and pieces of barely digested food out of his mouth. When he finished, he leaned heavily over the sink, locking his elbow and leaning on his arms. He tried to slow his pulse through sheer force of will, the panic of weakness in front of so many people still present in his veins. 

“Mr. Potter.” A silky voice said behind him, startling him. 

Harry straightened slowly, but didn’t turn around. He stood in silence, feeling Snape’s eyes bore into his back, but still, he said nothing. Finally, Snape’s patience seemed to break.

“What are you doing away from the feast, Mr. Potter?”

“Just… using the loo, sir.” Harry’s voice sounded strained, as if he had been yelling. His throat still burned from the stomach acid.

“Oh? Is that all?” Snape asked, sidling up besides Harry. Harry could hear the disbelief in his voice, and felt the burning of his gaze move to the side of his head. Still, he refused to look up from the sink, which was still spotted with his bile.

Snape’s hand reached out, slow, and he grasped Harry lightly by the chin, tilting his head in his direction. Harry didn’t fight the motion, and met Snape’s eyes. The man looked at him, and his gaze was heavy. Again, Harry felt as if something was trying to wiggle it’s way into his brain, but after a moment the feeling subsided. Harry made a mental note to ask Hermione about that when she returned from break.

“If my presence was that sickening, Mr. Potter, you should have just asked me to move.” Snape’s tone was one of dry humor that Harry had never heard from the man before.

“Why  _ did  _ you come sit by me?” Harry blurted before he could stop himself. He wanted to clap his hands across his mouth to stop another wayward comment, but Snape still had a grip on his chin. The dark haired man quirked a brow at him.

“Professor McGonagall can get fairly boisterous when inebriated, and I much preferred the quiet down at your end of the table.” Snape said. “I am also not so naive as your peers so as to be fearful of a 12 year old boy.”

Finally, Snape released his chin, so Harry nodded, before immediately dropping his gaze back down to his threadbare trainers. 

“Are you unwell, Mr. Potter?” Snape asked, finally diving straight for the heart of the issue. 

Harry immediately shook his head.

“No, sir, really, I’m ok!” Snape nodded as if he understood.

“Ah, yes. I, too, Mr. Potter, tend to vomit while I am perfectly well.” He raised a skeptical brow at the boy.

Harry looked sheepishly up at Snape through his eyelashes.

“I really am okay sir, I just… ate too fast.” Snape arched the other brow, so that now his face was the picture of skepticism. 

“And why  _ were  _ you eating in such a fashion?”

Severus could see the moment Harry faltered, the half of a second in which he paused to come up with a good enough answer. No one else would have noticed, but Severus was in the business of noticing things that others missed.

“I missed breakfast this morning, Professor Snape.” Harry said after his almost imperceptible pause. Snape almost wanted to applaud the young boy. Not many could dance this subtle dance as the two of them had, and even less of those people were below the age of 20. It seemed this boy could go toe to toe with Severus and stay standing. A snake in a lion’s skin. How intriguing.

“So you must have. And the appalling lack of manners displayed?” Here, the boy faltered more noticeably, his mouth falling into an o of surprise for a moment, before he collected himself.

“My relatives aren’t very strict on table manners, and I forgot myself a moment at the table.”

_ Relatives.  _ Not  _ Family,  _ not  _ Uncle and Auntie _ .  _ Relatives.  _ Severus filed the information away for later. 

“If you say so, Mr. Potter.” Severus replied, filling his voice with all the disbelief he felt at the statement. Harry nodded, seemingly satisfied with him not pressing the issue, even if Severus obviously didn’t believe him

“See Madame Pomfrey before you retire this evening anyways.” Snape added, as that niggling doubt scratched at the back of his mind. Harry nodded eagerly, seeming to sense the conversation drawing to a close.

“Goodnight, Mr. Potter.” and after one last appraising glance, Snape swept from the bathroom in a swirl of dark robes.

Harry slumped against the sink, leaning his weight against it and taking in a steadying breath. He couldn’t believe his luck. He had somehow managed to convince Snape to leave him alone. Harry could tell that the man had his suspicions but-- well, if he never showed to Madame Pomfrey’s, he’d have nothing to confirm them. Harry, satisfied with his solution, gathered himself, and headed up to Gryffindor Tower. 

  
  


_______________________

  
  
  


In the next few days between his return to Hogwarts and Christmas Eve, Harry spent his days avoiding everyone. He explored the castle; dusty hallways no one had been in for months, or even years; chatting with paintings and statues who were more than happy to talk to a curious little boy after so long in solitude; trips to the kitchen; escapades out on the grounds, the space so wide open around him that he could see someone coming from a mile away, not that anyone ever did. 

In Harry’s opinion, it was the very best sort of way to spend a holiday. 

On Christmas Eve, he went to bed late, after a secretive trip to the owlery with an armful of presents. When break first began, Harry had worried over how he would get the presents to their recipients-- a few of his professors, and his friends. But, after his return to Hogwarts, it seemed that his lack of familiar was actually rather helpful. Last year, when Harry had tried to give his parcels to school owls in Hedwig’s presence, she had squawked indignantly and fluttered around angrily until he had tied Hagrid’s present to her foot to deliver to the half giant. This year, with his familiar spending the holiday at the Weasley’s, it would be easier for him to send his packages to his teachers anonymously as he had wished. Hedwig was, after all, a beautiful snow-white owl, incredibly dissimilar to the plain brown owls that Hogwarts kept in her owlery.

He preferred to send the packages to the professors anonymously, because what if they hated the present? Or thought he was just trying to be a suck up, or be a teacher’s pet? For the first time in his life, Harry’s teachers didn’t actively dislike him, and he wasn’t going to jeopardize that for something as simple as a present. Harry knew firsthand how much a teacher could make your life a living hell if they felt like it, and figured that applied tenfold at a boarding school. He wanted to avoid that at all costs. But, at the same time, he was in a position, for the first time in his life, where he could give people gifts. 

So Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Snape, Sprout, and Dumbledore each received a small, anonymous parcel wrapped in nondescript brown paper. Inside the plain wrappers were personalized gifts accompanied a small bag of flavored biscuits-- chocolate, vanilla, raspberry, whatever flavor he had observed a teacher reaching for the most during tea. (Snape, surprisingly enough, favored a strawberry biscuit. Harry didn’t share this information with anyone else.) This year, each teacher had gotten gifts that Harry was rather proud of. 

McGonagall had received a red, never-dull quill, long and beautiful. Professor Flitwick had received much the same present, but in blue. Each was accompanied by a small unspillable pot of ink in a no-nonsense black that Harry knew each teacher tended to grade essays in. Snape had received a potions timer Harry had found in a potions catalogue, and a stirring stick that you could set both a pace and number of revolutions to. Neither item was something Harry was sure whether or not Snape needed, but they were fairly recent additions to the potions store in Diagon Alley, so Harry could only hope that Snape would appreciate them either way. Sprout had received a small spout that could be charmed to water up to 20 plants. Harry figured that an item like that may be useful whether Sprout already had one or not, so he wasn’t too worried about that one.

At first, Harry was unsure what to give to the Headmaster, who could probably have anything he wanted in the whole wide world. But then, Harry had remembered something. Dumbledore had mentioned, last year, about how one could never have enough socks. And Harry had thought to himself, _well,_ _if he doesn’t like it, he won’t know it’s from me. _So Harry had sent Hedwig to Diagon Alley with an order form for a pair of socks that looked like a galaxy- the background a beautiful mix of purple and blue, the stars scattered across it actively twinkling- and hoped for the best.

When he woke late- for him- the next morning, the sun was shining merrily through the window onto him, warming him inside his cozy cocoon. As he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his crusty eyes, he caught sight of the small pile of presents at the foot of his bed and broke into a grin. The pile was bigger than last year, 6 or 7 presents, and excitement bolted through Harry.

Sleepiness forgotten, Harry dove for the pile of presents, grabbing for the first one he could get his hands on. He stared reverently at the tag, and the bow tied around the perfectly wrapped, square package.

_ To: Harry Potter _

_ From: The Weasleys _

Harry carefully pried up the corners of the paper, sliding a finger under the edges and tape to open it without tearing the paper. When it slid off, Harry took the paper and folded it carefully into a square, before setting it next to him on the bed. He pulled the lid off of the box, and was pleasantly unsurprised to see an emerald green jumper with a large yellow  _ H  _ on the front. Harry pressed the jumper to his face and breathed deeply, able to smell ever so faintly the scent he had come to associate with the Burrow and its inhabitants. Harry slid off Duduley’s old t-shirt that he used for pajamas (even rattier than the ones he wore for clothes) and pulled the jumper over his head, revelling in the warmth and softness of it. 

Underneath where the jumper had been, there was a smaller box that Harry soon discovered was fudge, and a small card with birds on the front-- similar to the kind Harry knew Aunt Petunia used to dash off little messages to people, only the creatures on the front of this one moved. On the inside of the card, Harry found a short message written in glittering red ink.

_ Happy Christmas Harry! Ron said you would be at Hogwarts, so that’s where I sent this, and I hope ever so much that you have received it. Enjoy the fudge, and be sure to come visit us again soon! _

_ Love,  _

_ Molly, Arthur, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Feorge, Gred, Ron, and Ginny Weasley  _

  
  


Each of the signatures were written by a different hand, and Harry realized with a startle that each Weasley had taken the time to sign the card, even the Weasleys he had never met before.

Tears welled up in Harry’s eyes, and he pressed the card to his chest, bending in half to try and ease the swelling pressure in his chest. After a moment of sniffling, Harry collected himself and noticed a short note on the back of the card. 

_ Tried to slip in a few of our inventions for you, but Mum said no! We’ll make sure to get them to you at school ;)  _

_ \- F&G _

Harry chuckled thickly, and wiped his face on the sleeve of his jumper, collecting himself. At this rate, he wouldn’t make it to the Christmas Feast in time!

Harry grabbed the next package, and recognized Hermione’s cramped scrawl.

_ Happy Christmas Harry!  _ Said the outside of the red package. Harry carefully unwrapped the package the same way he had the first, and after laying aside the wrappings, took a moment to admire the book Hermione had sent him. 

_ The Boy Who Lived _ was in bold, glittering gold at the top, and beneath, in a smaller print  _ what happened after that fateful night _ . Confusion and disgust mounting, Harry caught sight of a scrap of Muggle lined paper sticking from the top of the book, a short message scrawled on it in ballpoint pen.

_ Harry, _

_ I know what you’re thinking-- “Really, Hermione? You bought me a book about  _ myself?” _ Well, I figured we could go through it together and send a letter to the publisher about all the information they have wrong, seeing as you always seem to find it so amusing when I do so. Have a Happy Christmas! Can’t wait to see you :D _

_ -Hermione _

Harry turned back to the cover and grinned. Hermione was right, he  _ would  _ enjoy reading a silly book like this and telling them everything they had wrong about him. He would have to play up the Dursleys to make them sound more pleasant, but he had always enjoyed Hermione’s letters to publishers about incorrect or ill-researched facts. Hermione could be rather scathing when she thought someone was spreading misinformation, and it always did amuse Harry. He set the book in his slowly growing pile of unwrapped presents, and reached for the next one.

Harry studied the wrapping, and after a moment realized it was from Ginny, the tiny, neat scrawl of  _ Harry  _ in the corner matching that of her handwriting on the card. Harry unwrapped this present with the same reverence as the rest, and uncovered a well-worn but still pristine copy of  _ Thee 100 Moste Effective Defensive Curses for The Refined Lady.  _ Harry frowned at the title, but again, there was a note stuck inside the book, this one on a scrap of parchment. 

_ Harry,  _

_ Found this in the attic years ago, has been ‘most effective’ on my brothers and gits alike-- ‘ladylike manners’ having nothing to do with it. Happy Christmas! _

_ -Ginny _

Harry grinned down at the tome, feeling touched that Ginny had been willing to share her secrets with him. Though only a first year, there were already rumors of Ginny’s prowess with curses, especially particularly nasty and lesser-known ones. Many a goon of Malfoy’s and tormentor of Harry’s or Luna's (often one in the same) had been sent to the Hospital wing after a tangle with Ginny. 

Harry set the book on top of the one Hermione had sent him and grabbed the next parcel. This one was small, and oddly shaped. When Harry pulled apart the paper, a pair of pink, oddly-shaped glasses fell into Harry’s lap. A small piece of parchment was folded and tucked between the two arms of the glasses. Harry pulled it out, and opened it up.

_ These are Spectrespecs. They help you see wrackspurts, which can fill your head and make things fuzzy if you make the space too hospitable for them. I can’t understand her, but I should think that if I could, Aziraphale would hope that you are well, as I do. We are excited to see you again after break.  _

There was no signature, but from the loopy script and contents of the message, Harry knew the gift was from Luna. Harry slipped the Spectrespecs over his rickety glasses, and was surprised to see what looked like little blue nits floating around the room. Harry quickly took off the glasses, preferring to forget of the creatures existence, and vowed to ask Luna more about wrackspurts when she returned from break. 

Setting the gift aside, Harry picked up the next parcel, which was a tin of treacle fudge from Hagrid, and a short note inviting him and his friends over for tea after break. The package was wrapped just as sloppily as the next one, which Harry figured to be from Ron. It was a tube, and when Harry opened it, it unrolled to be a fluorescent orange  _ Chudley Cannons  _ poster, the players on it zooming around and waving. Harry set it next to his books to stick up later.

All his presents opened, Harry flopped back on his bed, grinning, ignoring the small twinge of pain from his yet-to-be-fully-healed back. 

This was the best Christmas  _ ever _ .

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: V-ennat  
please consider tipping this broke college student: Ko-fi.com/graceh
> 
> comment!! please!! i reply to them all and literally check my email so many time a day looking for new ones 
> 
> this story isn't done yet, but i have about a 15k buffer as i put this chapter into my drafts to be posted later. at this point, you guys have read about half of what I have. I think this is the longest ch so far? either way, it's my favorite. I might have been a little over zealous with those descriptions of harry going feral on the food, but it's genuinely one of my favorite scenes. also, more snape! this isn't the last we see of him, do not be fooled.


	5. 5: Christmas at Hogwarts part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some more Christmas at Hogwarts, but this time it's Christmas Dinner! (only one more Christmas chapter, I swear!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey uh,,,,, it's been a hot minute since i updated last. i have a good reason!!! i'm trying to stretch out posting what i already have written because my muse has been focused solely on the Umbrella Academy, and everything i've written recently has been for that. also, college sucks balls.

That night, Harry wore his Weasley jumper to the feast. While he may have been avoiding everyone else in the castle for the past few days, he wasn’t going to miss the splendid Hogwarts Christmas Feast for anything. 

He had slowly been rebuilding his appetite for the last few days with protein-rich snacks all throughout the day and meals full of carbs and vegetables. Harry had read once while hiding in the library from Dudley, that this was the best way to build yourself up. And while he could eat much more now, he had still skipped lunch in anticipation of all the things to eat at the feast tonight.

When he got to the Hall, Harry stared around himself in wonder. Hundreds of candles all over the great hall were twinkling in a multitude of colors. There were 7-foot tall pine trees dotted around the edges of the hall, decorated with twinkling white lights and a different little dragon at the top of each tree. Upon the teacher’s dais, there was a larger tree, at least 12 feet tall, covered in baubles of all sizes, shapes, and colors, with a bright, color-changing, twinkling light at the top. After a moment of gawping, Harry made his way to the end of the table, where no-one else was seated. He figured his 4-day disappearing act probably didn’t do him any favors in the eyes of his fellow students, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel bad over it. He had enjoyed his break far too much. 

Harry fiddled with a yellow Christmas cracker on the table in front of him, remembering last year when he and Ron had giggled, opening several of the crackers before the food appeared. He missed his friends desperately.

Across from him, someone sat down, startling Harry. He looked up in surprise and met the dark eyes of Severus Snape.

“Professor!” He said in surprise. The man inclined his head.

“Mr. Potter. Happy Christmas.”

“H-happy Christmas, sir.”

The professor nodded his head to the cracker in front of Harry.

“Would you like to split it?” 

Harry felt his eyes widened in surprise, but he nodded anyway, offering one end to his professor. The man grasped it easily, and it looked silly in his hand. In Harry’s head, it seemed that the ideas of  _ Professor Snape  _ and  _ Christmas Cracker  _ did not belong together. Despite that fact, the man across from him was very much holding said cracker, looking at him expectantly.

“On three, Mr. Potter?” Harry nodded, and the man counted up. After the last number, they both pulled, and a small cloud of purple smoke erupted between them. When it cleared, each of them had a small pile of things in front of them. The live mice in both of their piles skittered off immediately, and they both let them, knowing that the transfiguration was made to undo itself in an hour's time. 

Snape picked up the tiny wizards hat in his pile with distaste, before dropping it in Harry’s. Harry placed it on his head, where it grew to full size, and the red and green pinstripe detailing became clear. Harry thought he saw the corners of Snape’s lips quirk in amusement, but the expression was gone before he could really be sure of it. He dug through his pile and found a package of Ice Mice, which he pocketed to give to Aziraphale upon her return to Hogwarts. The last thing in his pile was a small whistle, and when Harry puffed on it experimentally, it sounded like a cat meowing. Harry laughed in delight, before looking up.

“What did you get, sir?” 

Snape looked down at his pile.

“A chocolate frog, grow your own warts kit, and a licorice wand.” Snape opened the chocolate frog as he spoke, catching it with deft fingers, before pulling the card from the package and slipping the frog back into the cardboard, and setting it aside. He studied the card.

“Merlin, again. I’m sure I have 30 of him, by now.” He offered the card to Harry, who took it, because, despite the regularity with which this card occurred, Harry did not yet have one.

“You collect Chocolate Frog cards, sir?” he asked before he could think better of it. Snape just nodded, as if this wasn’t the most surreal situation of Harry’s entire life.

“When I first came to Hogwarts, I was fascinated with the moving pictures and began my collection. I don’t get many these days, but I’ve had some of my cards for a very long time now.” Snape said. Harry realized with a start that Snape must be a Muggleborn or at the very least a Half-blood, like himself. 

“I’ve always liked magical pictures.” Harry agreed, growing more comfortable. “Gave me a right start when I first saw them, though.” He said with a smile. To his shock, Snape offered a close-lipped smile in return.

“It is rather odd to see something move when you aren’t expecting it.” Snape agreed. Before Harry could say anything more, the food appeared before them on the table. Harry, delighted, scooped the nearest thing onto his plate, which happens to be a slice of ham. He grabbed a roll, a helping of asparagus, and filled his goblet with apple cider, before scooping up his knife and fork and attacking his food. After a second of contemplation, he once again does as Snape does, smoothing his napkin over his lap.

He noticed that the other man had gathered a meal similar to his own, and was looking at Harry's plate with an appraising glance.

“It is good to see a child here able to balance their meals,” Snape said approvingly. “Many children would skip straight over the vegetables to something less healthy.”

“I like vegetables,” Harry said, shrugging. “I didn’t get a lot of them when I was younger.”

“Oh? Are your relatives not very keen on healthy eating?”

“Dudley sure isn’t.” At Snape’s questioning look, Harry tacked on, “My cousin. He looks like a beach ball with blonde hair in all his baby pictures.” he sniggered. The corners of Snape’s lips tilt upwards.

“And how did you escape a similar fate?”

Harry’s shoulders tense ever so slightly, but it doesn’t go unnoticed by Severus.

“Just didn’t eat much of the same stuff.” He said carefully, shrugging. Severus could see the guarded look in his eye and backed off.

“Understandable. I have also always found vegetables rather enjoyable.” Severus said, taking the easy route away from that particular topic. Harry nodded.

“And even if I didn’t like ‘em, I think Hermione would make me eat them anyways. She’s always nagging me to eat more, but she  _ really  _ nags Ron to eat his vegetables. One time, Luna said she doesn’t like to eat vegetables because they attract Nargles. She just said it to wind up Hermione, and  _ boy  _ did it work. She went off on a tangent so long that she talked the whole meal and didn’t have time to eat her own vegetables. Ron didn’t let her forget it for a whole week.” Harry smiled, and Severus listened on patiently to the boy’s chatter.

“That does sound like something Ms. Granger would do, but not quite something I would expect from Ms. Lovegood. She seems rather…” Severus chose his words carefully. “Flighty.”

The boy across from him shrugged.

“She seems that way, yeah, but don’t let her fool you. She’s  _ wicked  _ smart and super funny. She also knows all about these things I’ve never heard of. Tinctures, charms-- she makes all these little things for me to carry around for different reasons.” He wrinkles his face, for once the perfect picture of a 12-year-old boy. “Some of them smell bad, but I always take them, because I know she worked hard on them.” He paused for a moment. “Is she good at Potions? I know she’s good at Herbology because sometimes she and Neville talk about it when she sits over at Gryffindor. But she knows so much about plants and stuff, I can’t imagine she’d be bad at Potions.” The boy looked expectantly at him.

“She is.” He said cautiously. “She often adds things outside the instructions, but her creations, though unique, are often correct.” Harry nodded, smiling to himself, seemingly satisfied with that answer.

“About that,” he said. “Why  _ does  _ Ms. Lovegood sit at the Gryffindor table? And for that matter, all of you over at the Ravenclaw table?” The boy across from him straightened up, and Severus worried he had stepped wrong. 

“It’s not against the rules.” the boy said, and his voice had a dash of steel in it. Severus inclined his head.

“You are correct,” He agreed. “It is not. I was simply curious.” The boy relaxed, then winced.

“Being friends with me, right now, isn’t the… best thing, for anyone. Kids were already bothering Luna, but since she stayed friends with me through all this Heir business, they bother her more. We all sit together so that no one will bother us. They’re all really good friends.” Harry said, tone resolute like he was daring Severus to disagree. 

“It would appear so.” Severus agreed, setting his fork and knife across each other on his plate. He dabbed at the corners of his lips with his napkin, before setting that down, too. He stewed in silence for a moment, the boy in front of him eating quickly, but neatly. He thought carefully about what he wanted to say, determined to not scare off the boy in front of him.  _ Something  _ was… amiss, with the boy. He had seen the same behaviors displayed in students before, students who were good enough at flying under the radar that he was usually the only teacher to notice anything wrong. And Harry was setting off those same alarm bells.

But Dumbledore had assured both him and McGonagall, time and again, that he had checked up on Harry, that someone had a careful eye on him always, and that the boy was happy, healthy, and loved. Severus had trusted Dumbledore implicitly, always. But he knew that the man saw people as pawns, more concerned with the greater good than anything else. He knew what Petunia Evans had been like as a girl-- knew what an ugly, mean-spirited man she had married.

And most of all, Severus knew what he could see with his own two eyes-- a pale, quiet, skinny boy, who had come back from a week at his relatives looking far worse for the wear and returning from a summer in their care seemingly smaller than he had left. Ratty clothes, worn shoes, broken glasses, obvious ravenous hunger. As much as Severus trusted Dumbledore and his plans, he trusted his own intuition more. It had saved his life even more times than Dumbledore had, and when he ignored it, he had always paid the price. (With Lily. With the Mark on his forearm. With a life spent spying and lying and hiding.)

But what could he do? A move too sudden would spook the boy, and a move too slow could leave him in danger. Either way, he couldn’t look into those eyes that held the same look he had seen in his own as a child, and leave him alone. (Those eyes, Lily’s eyes, should never hold that look.)

Before he could speak, the child paused in his eating, looking shyly up at Severus through his frizzy, curly fringe. His scar, still visible through his hair, crackled out shockingly white across his dark skin. His emerald eyes shone with a mix of curiosity and nervousness, visible behind the flimsy, thick glasses slipping down his nose.

“Professor?” He asked quietly. Severus inclined his head, nodding at him to go on.

“Why…” He cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter.  _ Gryffindor bravery.  _ Severus thought, a touch too fondly for his own comfort. “Why are you eating with  _ me,  _ sir?”

“I’m fairly certain that I have informed you already that I find Minerva to be far too friendly while inebriated.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him, obviously not believing him but unwilling to call him out on it, and Severus almost laughed at the expression on his childish face, but refrained.

“Of course, sir.” the child said, and his tone didn’t bely any of the disbelief on his face.  _ Slytherin.  _ A little voice whispered in the back of his head.

He realized then that the child would see through any attempt at observation he made. He had never done badly in Severus’ class, and he had been praised in other classes for his aptitude across the board, but Severus had definitely underestimated the boy in front of him. He resigned himself to continuing his observation from afar and hoping the boy would slowly learn to trust him. He stood from his seat.

“Goodnight, Mr. Potter.”

“Goodnight Professor Snape. Happy Christmas.” damn those green eyes, sparkling up at him with such sincerity.

“Happy Christmas, Harry.” 

Severus swept off before the boy could reply, and assured himself that he was definitely  _ not  _ running away from a 12-year-old boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as i said before, college sucks balls, so drop me a comment please? i always reply and they make my day
> 
> thoughts! thoughts! thoughts!!!!!
> 
> (also plz go read my umbrella academy fics i'm so proud of them.)
> 
> this chapter is the schmoopiest thing i've ever written in my life, EVER. so soft.


	6. 6: Christmas at Hogwarts part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> last Christmas chapter I swear!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops! I just noticed its been more than a month since I've updated! I'm so sorry!! I'm currently on vacation for Thanksgiving, so I'll have lots of time to reply to comments.
> 
> happy reading!!

Harry planned to spend the remainder of his break much the same as he had spent his week before Christmas-- flying on the Quidditch pitch, exploring the halls of Hogwarts (there was  _ always  _ something new to be found), and generally avoiding all the other students.

Three days into his gleeful avoidance of everyone else, Harry received a note from Dumbledore asking him to please show up for one meal a day in the Great Hall with everyone else, so that his Professors can be sure that he is feeding himself properly. Harry scoffs after reading the letter, and Hedwig, perched on his nightstand, gently nips at his hand in question. Harry stroked a hand along her back.

“The Headmaster wants me to eat in the Great Hall so that he knows I’m eating well,” Harry explained, amused. “As if the kitchen elves would even consider letting me leave the kitchens without eating plenty.” 

Hedwig hooted softly in agreement, and Harry smiled at her.

“See girl, you know what I mean.”

Still, Harry indulged the Headmaster and began to show up for dinner every night in the Great Hall. As they had before, all the other students would congregate towards the middle of the table, closer to the professors, leaving the end of the table open for Harry to sit by himself.

Or, so he thought.

Professor Snape joined him every night for the rest of the break. They didn’t always talk, sometimes they just sat in companionable silence as they both ate. Sometimes, they talked about simple things-- classes, Harry’s friends, interesting potions Professor Snape had heard of. It was odd, Harry thought, that the man who hadn’t said anything more than what was absolutely necessary to him for over a year had suddenly shown such a keen interest in talking to him. Harry wondered if he had noticed something, and bit down on the flash of panic he felt at the idea of someone  _ knowing.  _ He dismissed the idea quickly, simply because he didn’t have even an inkling of what he would do about it if Snape did in fact know.

In the end, Harry ended up spending the rest of his break pretty similarly to how he had planned to do so originally, but with the added oddness of dinner with Snape. Harry decided he would leave that part out when telling Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna about his break.

Which, to Harry’s excitement, he would be doing very soon. His friends were due back at Hogwarts the next day, and Harry was practically bouncing in his seat with excitement during dinner. After smiling to himself for the third time in as many minutes, Professor Snape finally seemed to have enough.

“And what, exactly, has you so riled up, Mr. Potter?” After that one time on Christmas, Professor Snape hadn’t called him by his first name again. But he said  _ Mr. Potter  _ in such a tone of voice that it almost felt as if he was calling him Harry anyway.

“My friends are back tomorrow!” Harry said happily. “Ron sent Hedwig back with my Christmas present, but Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Aziraphale will all be back tomorrow! I can’t wait to tell them about all the stuff I found in the castle over the break.” Severus tried desperately not to think about the fact that the boy included two animals in his very short list of close friends. He figured it said something about the boy’s past friendships that he would even consider two animals his friends, one of which he couldn’t even hold a conversation with.

“Why  _ is _ Aziraphale with Ms. Lovegood?” Severus did not miss the way in which the boy in front of him stilled for barely a moment before any trace of panic was wiped from his face as if it had never been there. If he wasn't watching so carefully, Severus would have thought he imagined it.

“Since she was transfigured and not born, she’s never really had a chance to go much beyond Hogwarts. I figured it would be more interesting for her to go with Luna rather than be stuck with my relatives.” Severus nodded. It was a lie, (because as good of an actor as Harry was, he was still a 12-year-old boy, and Severus was a spy, trained to see lies) but it was a good one. If he were anyone else, he would have fallen for it. Knowing he wouldn’t have a chance like this again for some time, Severus decided to push his luck a little.

“Is there any particular reason that she would not wish to be… ‘stuck’ with your relatives?” Harry looks up at him sharply, and Severus is once again struck by the sharp relief of the scar across the boy’s forehead, breaking through his right brow, pale and shiny.

“No.” The boy says, perfectly measured and even. “My relatives just aren’t the most… interesting people.”

Severus nods, and the boy looks at him for a moment longer, assessing, before returning to his own meal. A quiet atmosphere settles between the two of them, and Severus feels more strongly than ever that he must do something for this boy, damn any promises he has made to Dumbledore.

  
  


_______________________

  
  
  


Harry waited anxiously at the entrance to the castle, leaning out to try and catch sight of the students around the bend in the stairs. He couldn’t see anyone coming, so he leaned further, his finger gripping tightly to the door frame, toes stretched as far as he could. Just as he could  _ almost  _ see around the bend, he lost his footing. He would have gone tumbling down the stairs, but a strong grip seized the back of his robes, dragging him back from the opening of the doorway and back into the warmth of the castle. Turning around, Harry smiled sheepishly at a scowling Professor Snape.

“Is there any particular reason you are trying to crack your skull open on the flagstones, Mr. Potter? Or are you just trying to finish the job the Dark Lord started 11 years ago?” the Professor’s words were harsh but had no real bite to them. Harry rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. Snape had told him that if he could behave himself, he could wait at the doorway for his friends. It was a surprisingly nice gesture, considering that Snape seemed to grow more irritated every minute that ticked closer to the arrival of all the students.

“I was just trying to see if they were close, sir.” Snape raised an eyebrow at him dryly.

“The Hogwarts Express runs purely on magic, Mr. Potter. It will be no later or earlier than the exact time it is expected. Your friends will arrive shortly, and there is no need to brain yourself tumbling down the stairs to confirm that.” Harry nodded, but couldn’t help darting a glance once again into the dark outside to see if there was anyone climbing the stairs. 

Professor Snape pulled his wand from his left sleeve, drawing Harry’s attention, and cast a series of spells on the floor around the doorway, and the door jamb. Harry couldn’t make out the muttered spells, and when the man was done, the floor had a slight sheen to it, but otherwise nothing had changed.

“What was that, sir?”

“You shall see, Mr. Potter, if you can exercise some patience.”

Harry closed his mouth to stop himself from asking any more questions. He desperately wanted to know what Snape had done to the floor, but he also didn’t want the man to think he was incapable of waiting. He wasn’t a  _ child,  _ after all.

“Here we are!” came Hagrid’s booming voice, cheery as always. He was first around the bend, and his hulking form blocked Harry’s view of anyone behind him. 

“Hello there Harry!” Hagrid called, coming into the doorway and stomping his boots on the ground to rid them of the snow clinging to them. Immediately, the snow disappeared, and any snow that fell off of Hagrid’s shoulder’s disappeared too. Harry looked at Snape in question as Hagrid ushered the students in. The man inclined his head.

“Later, Mr. Potter.” Harry nodded in return, and before he could say anything, a head full of bushy hair was bounding towards him.

“Harry!” Hermione cried, practically throwing herself at him. Her arms wrapped around him tightly, and Harry felt a flash of pain go through him as her arms tightened around his sore ribs, and her hand landed on his tender back. Recovering quickly, Harry squeezed her back q, and she extricated herself from his arms. Harry ignored the ache in his stomach as she moved further away.

Luna, Ron, Ginny, and the twins were behind Hermione, and all of them grinned at Harry. Ron took a step closer and clapped him on the shoulder, thankfully farther from the crisscrossing welts on his back than Hermione had been. 

“Hey, mate!” Ron quickly stepped back from Harry to be near Ginny, and Harry was less hurt than curious about the action. It almost seemed as if the other boy was unconsciously shielding the younger girl. “Sorry I didn’t come back for Christmas, but Bill and Charlie were home, and I don’t see them too often. How was Christmas here?” Harry smiled at his friend.

“It was brilliant! I’ll tell you all about it at dinner.” 

“We’ve got a lot to tell you all at dinner, too.” Ginny piped up from over Ron’s shoulder, smiling. She looked better than when she had left for break, and it was only now that she looked so much healthier than Harry realized exactly how bad she had looked before break. The Basilisk must have been taking more of a toll on her than Harry had thought it had.

Luna stepped out from the throng of red-headed Weasley’s. The snow that was still in her hair almost blended into the pale, white locks. She took a step towards Harry and held out her arm. Harry couldn’t stop a minuscule flinch at the action, pronounced though it had been. Thankfully, none of his friends seemed to see the action. On her arm, Aziraphale was wrapped around her wrist, with her tiny head coming to rest on Luna’s thumb. Catching sight of him, she began to hiss excitedly.

_ “Speaker!”  _ Harry smiled at her, reaching out to scoop her gently off of Luna’s arm. He brought her up to his neck, where she immediately slithered around it like a weighted necklace.  _ “Your friend took great care of me. Please thank her.” _

“She says thank you, Luna. I do, too. I really appreciate you watching her for me. Tell me how much you spent on food or anything, and I’ll pay you back for that and watching her, ok?” He said, smiling. Luna smiled back.

“Do you think Daddy could interview you, instead? A lot of people think that his magazine is silly, so maybe they'd take it more seriously with you in it.” Harry really admired the respect she had for her father. She had shown them the Quibbler a few times, and Harry had found it a little odd, but in a world of magic and spells, it actually seemed rather normal. But he knew what other kids said and thought about her father’s magazine. 

“Of course, Luna. Just have him owl me some questions and I’ll send him my answers.” He smiled at her. “I can even ask Colin to take a picture for me to send with it, if you think he’d like that.”

“Oh, very much.” Luna said. Harry went to reply to her, but the entryway was becoming crowded, and he was getting jostled around, which was unsurprising considering the students still streaming through the doorway.

“C’mon.” He pitched his voice above the hubbub. “Let’s go into the Great Hall and get seats.”

Harry plunged into the crowd, and hoped that his friends were following him. Thanks to his size, Harry ducked under and between students, squeezing through the crowd quickly and without much notice.

Finally pulling out off the crowd, Harry found himself inside the Great Hall, where a few students had taken up residence at each of the four House tables. Harry walked towards the Gryffindor table, towards the end, which he had come to think of as their ‘spot’ at the table.

Harry slid into the seat at the end of the table, and without thought spread his napkin over his lap, as he had done every time he had dinner with Snape.

“Well,” Hermione said as she sat next to him. “It’s good to see that someone picked up some manners while I was gone.” She smiled and nodded her head at Ron, who had slid into the seat across from them, and was already slumped forward in his seat, both of his elbows on the table in front of them. They both giggled, and he frowned at them, straightening up and moving his elbows off the table.

Luna sat down next to him, and he felt comfortingly bracketed in. Ginny sat next to Ron, and the Twins settled next to her. Harry looked around himself, and felt something warm settle into his chest. Hogwarts was safe, all his friends were here, and he didn’t have to go back to the Dursley’s for a few months yet. Sure, the rest of the students were still shunning him, but that was nothing new to Harry. And with friends by his side, he was sure he could get through it.

“I’ve got something to tell you all.” Ginny said, and when Harry looked at her, her face was serious. “And I understand if you don’t trust me, or don’t want to be my friend afterward.”

“Gin--” Ron started, and his face was serious too, but Ginny didn’t let him finish.

“No, Ron. It’s perfectly reasonable if they don’t want to be friends with me after--” She stopped, and took a deep breath in, before blowing it back out. “It’s probably better if I just... Tell you. First, though, I need to apologize to Harry. It’s my fault that everyone is shunning you, and if it wasn’t for what- what I let happen, for what I  _ did,  _ none of this would have ever happened.” She waves a hand at the other end of the table, indicating the very clear divide between Harry and his friends and the rest of the students. 

“Gin, we talked about this,” Fred says, with a stern look on his face. 

“It’s  _ not your fault,”  _ George says, his face a perfect mirror of his twin’s. Ginny nods once, sharply, but doesn’t actually agree with them. She went on before either of them could say anything more.

“Back in August, I found a diary mixed in with my school things from Flourish and Blotts. I didn't remember buying it, so I knew it must have accidentally gotten scooped up with my school things at one point or another. It was lovely but definitely expensive. I didn’t want to make Mum and Dad pay for something silly that we grabbed on accident, and I didn’t want the shop people to think that I stole it and get me in trouble. So… I kept it. I wrote in it a few times, and it was normal. Like any other diary.” Ginny stopped, closing her eyes. Ron threaded his fingers with hers, and she continued.

“And then it was September 1st, and I was on the Hogwarts Express, on my way to school, and I had you guys but, none of the girls in my year like me, and I missed Mum and Dad. And when I wrote in the diary,  _ it wrote back.”  _ Hermione, at Harry’s side, gasped. “I’ve seen things like it before, and I know they are very high end and expensive, which made me even more sure that I wasn't going to tell anyone about it. Time passed, and I was still writing in the diary every once in a while, but then I-- I lost time. After it happened the first time, I was shaken up. When I wrote about how scared I was in the diary it was… it was  _ mean.  _ It called me nasty things, and I closed it away in my trunk. It didn’t seem so fancy anymore.”

Ginny paused, and it seemed like she was gathering herself. Harry wished he could hug her, comfort her, but he didn’t know-how. No one ever had for him.

“But it…  _ called  _ to me. I couldn’t stop myself, and the next thing I knew, it was in my hands, and I had lost another chunk of time. I was scared, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want someone to call me stupid for, for using some unknown artefact.” Ron squeezed her hand.

“You’re not stupid, Gin,” George said, draping an arm around her shoulder comfortingly. Everyone nodded with him.

“Ron, can you…”

“Yeah, of course,” Ron said to Ginny, and Harry was reminded once again how many years the two of them had spent at home together while their brothers went off to Hogwarts without them.

“When we came home on break, Charlie and Bill surprised us by picking us up from the station. We could all tell by then something was wrong, because Ginny wasn’t even too happy to see the two of them, and Bill’s her favorite. We went home, and as soon as Ginny saw Mum and Dad, she burst into tears and gave them the diary. She told us about the time she lost, and the diary talking back to her. Bill ran some tests on it and said that it was some really dark stuff. Fred and George realized that the same lapses of time she was missing lined up with when they found the messages and the Petrified in the hallways. Mum and Dad contacted Dumbledore, and he took the diary to school. Dad said Dumbledore used it to find the Basilisk.”

“The diary possessed me,” Ginny said, quieter even than she and Ron had been when they explained everything to them. “It possessed me, and it made me paint those messages on the walls. I think it made me release the Basilisk, but I don’t remember how I did it.” 

Ginny finally looked up at them from across the table, tears shining in her eyes.

“It’s my fault everyone shunned you, Harry, and it’s my fault the school was attacked. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me for what I did.”

“ _ You  _ didn’t do anything!” Fred said in a whispered yell. “It was that  _ git  _ Lucius Malfoy. He’s the one who slipped you the diary, and he’s been arrested for it.  _ You  _ haven’t, which means it  _ isn’t  _ your fault.” Ginny nods at Fred and wipes the tears from her face.

Slowly, Harry reaches across the table and lays his hand softly across hers and Ron’s. She looks at him. 

“Fred’s right,” Harry says, resolute. “None of that is your fault, and you did the best you could in a horrible situation. You’re stronger than anyone I know, Ginny.” Harry meant every word.

“I should have given you one of my charms,” Luna said sadly. “Maybe that would have helped. I’m ever so sorry Ginny, but I’m glad that you were strong enough to get through this.” 

Everyone turns to Hermione. She rolls her eyes at them.

“Oh, as  _ if  _ this would be enough to stop me from being friends with you. Really, it just proves that I made the right decision because being able to withstand the pressure of a Dark Artefact is impressive.” 

Ginny smiles at all of them through her tears, but then something catches up with Harry in his brain.

“Wait,  _ Lucius Malfoy?  _ Draco’s dad? Why did he do it?” The expression on Ron’s face twists.

“Bloody wanker. He’s as dark as they come. He followed You-Know-Who, but he got off on claims of being Imperioed, even though we all know  _ that's _ a load of shite. But now that he’s been caught passing a Dark Artefact off to a little girl, he’s being reinvestigated, this time under Veritaserum. They arrested him last night.” Ron says gleefully. 

Before anyone can say anything in reply, Dumbledore stands on the dais. Harry realizes belatedly that the Great Hall was filled.

“Students! I’m so pleased to see you all again. I shan’t bore you with my words much longer, but I would like to say that I am ever so happy to have you all return safely to Hogwarts. Now dig in!” 

At that, the tables all filled, and Harry could almost imagine the groan the tables let out as they became laden with food.

As his friends all dug in, Harry shot a curious look across the Hall to the Slytherin table, scanning for a head of pale blonde hair. To his surprise, he didn’t find Malfoy holding court in the center of the table like he expected. Instead, he finds him at the end of the table. His face looks drawn, and he’s paler than normal. His hair is no longer greased back against his head but just combed back. The difference is startling, and all Harry can see is a young, lost boy. 

Harry realizes then, something he has always known but never truly  _ understood  _ until that moment.

Slytherin is not just about cunning, Slytherin is about _power. _Whether you are born with it, or you earn it, or you make it yourself. Draco has had it since he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but it wasn’t _his. _It was the prestige and fear his father had cultivated. Draco only had followers and goons because of his father, and the power _he _had held.

Now, with that power gone, Draco had no standing. No prestige.

No power.

Harry knew what it meant to be a powerless kid, shunned and unwanted. Harry knew what it meant to have lost your parents. Harry  _ knew  _ that pale, drawn look on Draco’s face. It was the same one Harry had the first 11 years of his life, smothered under Vernon Dursley’s fat thumb.

“You don’t think...” Harry said, not noticing he had interrupted a conversation between the rest of his friends. But he didn’t really know where he was going with his sentence.

Did he dare? For a second, he almost didn’t. But then he thought of all those years in Primary school, when Dudley had bullied anyone who even breathed too close to him, and every kid stopped trying after a week. He had wished someone would dare to then.

He would have to be that person now.

“How do you all feel about sitting at the Slytherin table?” He asked, finally turning to look at his friends in the eye. With the exception of Luna, because it seemed nothing could shock the eccentric girl, his friends all looked at him in surprise. 

“Look at Draco,” he said, gesturing. “At the end of the table, alone.” His friends turned to look.

“I know what that feels like,” he said. “To sit alone, because you’re not worth anything to anyone. Now that Malfoy Sr. is gone, they don’t see him as… worth anything, anymore.”

He looked at each of his friends, seeking out their reactions. Hermione looked sympathetic, and he knew she had been just as friendless as he had been before Hogwarts. Luna smiled when he looked at her, and he knew she could see what he saw. Fred and George looked like they didn’t much mind, so long as Ginny didn’t, based on where their gazes were trained. Harry looked at Ginny in askance and saw the same acceptance as Luna had. She truly was the strongest and most resilient person he knew. Willing to give the son of her tormentor a second chance, despite all the trouble both Draco and his father had caused in her life. 

Lastly, Harry looked at Ron, and he was surprised to see the other boy looking back at him. He wasn’t angry or indignant like Harry was expecting. He was… thoughtful, an expression he didn’t get from Ron a lot. The other boy was looking at him, assessing in a way that Harry usually only saw when they played chess.

“You believe he deserves another chance?” Ron asked, and it wasn’t accusing, just… curious. “After everything, he’s done and said to you, you’re willing to give him another chance?”

Harry nodded without hesitation.

“ _ Everyone  _ deserves a chance to change. Lucius Malfoy wasted his by going back down the same path. We have to give Draco a chance to change, and carve his own path.”

Ron looked at him for a long, long moment, before nodding. 

“Ok,” He said. “Ok.” 

“I think you’re right to give him another chance,” Ginny spoke up. “But I don’t-- I can’t be around him, knowing that what his father did to me got him sent to jail. Please, do… better, for me.” Ginny said. Harry nodded at her. He understood that while she could forgive his father for his actions, it was harder to look his son in the eye and be civil, no matter how much she knew he deserved a chance to be better. 

Harry wrapped his silverware in his napkin and picked up his plate, which was laden with food that he most definitely did not put there. He shot a wry grin at Hermione, and she smiled sheepishly at him. 

Swinging his legs over the seat of the table, Harry stood and began to walk across the hall, Luna, Ron, and Hermione all trailing behind him. Fred and George stayed at the table with Ginny.

They didn’t garner much attention crossing the Hall, at first, but by the time they passed the Ravenclaw table and  _ kept going  _ people were staring. By the time they were steps away from the Slytherin table,  _ everyone  _ was staring-- even the teachers. The only sounds in the hall were whispers. 

Only a few feet in front of them, Draco sat, frowning. Harry and his friends stopped just a few steps from the bench across from Draco. The Slytherins further down the table were glaring, but Harry had long since learned to ignore glares and whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy thanksgiving to my friends who celebrate it! if not, happy random-thursday-in-November. come chat with me on twitter @vennatfinn !! let me know what you think of this chapter!! we're building up to some cool stuff happening soon ((((:
> 
> comment and kudos, please ! I always reply
> 
> for the next chapter: friendship. that's it. I've just been trying to get to the point where all it is is friendship


	7. 7: New Friends; Finding a Rhythm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco's here!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry Christmas to my celebrating friends! happy holidays to those who don't. I got a cool Bluetooth keyboard with which I will be able to write anywhere. it's lovely. (maybe it'll help me to build up my buffer for this story again??ha...ha...)
> 
> enjoy!!!!!

“Hello,” Harry says, pleasant as you please. “Do you mind if we sit?” He waited a moment, but when Draco only gaped at him, he decided to take that as a yes. He set his plate down, and Hermione and Ron sit next to him, Luna circling around the edge of the table to sit next to Draco. _ That girl knows no fear _Harry thought to himself.

Harry smoothed his napkin over his lap, picked up his cutlery, and took a bite of his food. It was a bit cold, by now, but Harry had definitely had worse. When there was no immediate reaction between Harry and Draco, the rest of the Hall began to fill with chatter again. People still turned in their seats to look, every once in a while, but for the most part, things went back to normal, even if Harry knew he was the subject of the majority of the discussions currently going on within the hall.

“What are you doing here, Potter?” Draco said, but it lacked the usual venom. He sounded tired, and up close, he looked even paler. 

“I figure that in a house renowned for its use of cunning, and filled with politics, having one’s powerful father being stripped of his power and titles would not do them any favors.” Harry wanted to wince at the harshness of his own words, but he knew that, with something like this, honesty was the best way to go. Draco looked surprised before his expression twisted into a halfhearted sneer.

“So? Slytherin business has nothing to do with you, Potter.”

“I was almost in Slytherin, you know.” Both Ron and Draco looked at him in surprise. “I think if I was, we could’ve been friends.” Harry looked up and met Draco’s eyes. 

“I know what it’s like to be shunned and ignored in your own house. I’m tired of standing by and letting it happen to other people because it would have made all the difference if someone had paid attention to me.” He stuck his hand out across the table to the other boy, and it was achingly reminiscent of their first year. Draco’s eyes flicked between Harry and the gap between him and the other Slytherins. For a moment, Draco just looked at him, assessing, before he reached forward and clasped Harry’s hand.

“Harry Potter,” he said. “Lovely to meet you. I hope we’ll be great friends.”

“Draco Malfoy.” the other boy said, and the look in his eyes was so much stronger-- more like steel, and less like a tired sky. “Likewise.”

  
  


_______________________

  
  
  


When Harry woke up the next day, the sky was dark. In the winter, the sun usually didn’t rise until right before they headed down for breakfast, and Harry has been up since far before the sun even began to peak up. 

He had woken up in a cold sweat, sure that Uncle Vernon was bearing down on him with his belt, seconds from the first blow.

Harry had a lot of nightmares like that-- that Hogwarts wasn’t real, and he was stuck at the Dursleys year after miserable year until he was old enough to move out and get a job far away from them. Waking up to the maroon bed hangings around his four-poster was more reassuring than he could put into words.

Harry had always been the earliest riser in their dorm, out of both habit and necessity. Harry had woken up early every day that he could remember. The concept of a lie-in was foreign to him because even when Aunt Petunia wasn’t there, pounding on his door for him to get his lazy self up, he _ felt _as if she was. Laying in bed past 7 in the morning left him feeling sick to his stomach, like his aunt would come swooping in at any second and shake him awake, fingernails digging into his shoulder.

The other reason he woke so early was so that he could use the shower before the other boys awoke. If he didn’t have healing wounds on his back, he still had scars, and though he tried to avoid looking at them, he knew they were gruesome-- long lash marks crisscrossed on the entirety of his back, with some even on his shoulders, and below his hips. Uncle Vernon had left a permanent mark on him, one that Harry _ could not _let anyone else see.

Yet, despite getting up early, Harry found no sense of luxury or comfort in using the loo for a long while. Any shower Harry had had at the Dursleys had always been short and cold, and to take any other kind made him feel dirty and _wrong_ like he was being wasteful. Harry knew the water at Hogwarts was charmed warm, and that any water he used was cleaned and cycled back through the pipes (Hermione had explained it to him and Ron during one of her countless rereads of _ Hogwarts: A History _)-- but he still couldn’t bring himself to use it. 

Hence the sitting in the windowsill in their dorm room watching the sunrise over a snowy, glistening Hogwarts. Harry cast a quick _tempus_ and figured it was late enough for him to wake Ron up. And of course, there was only one way to do it. Harry crept over to Ron’s bed, tugging open the bed hangings. Ron had given him blanket permission to wake him up however he saw fit because Ron was notoriously horrible at both waking up in the morning _ and _setting his alarm every night.

“Ron!” He said above his friend's head. He didn’t worry about his volume, because he could already see Seamus and Dean stirring, and Neville had passed him with a sleepy wave a few minutes earlier to go to the bathroom. “Get up, or you’ll miss breakfast!” 

Ron sat up so fast that he almost slammed his forehead into Harry’s chin, not that he was aware of it. He was only saved by Harry’s quick reflexes.

“Whuzzat? Bekfiss?” Ron slurred, upright but with his eyes still closed. Harry laughed, and Ron cracked open an eye to look at him. The redheaded boy looked at his giggling friend for a long moment before glaring sharply at him. Which would probably have been more effective had he not also been yawning widely at the same time. 

“You used the breakfast one again, didn’t you.” He said, resigned. Harry giggled a little more before nodding. Ron sighed, scrubbing at his sleep bleary eyes before he stumbled his way off of his bed. As he went to collect his robes and underclothes, Harry gathered his things and stuffed them into his bag.

“I’ll meet you in the Great Hall in a few,” Ron said over his shoulder. Harry echoed an affirmative and slung his bag over his shoulder. Mentally double-checking that he had everything for his classes, Harry felt for his wand in his pocket, and once he was sure it was there, set off for the Great Hall. Harry passed Luna on the way, and after exchanging pleasantries, they walked to the Hall in companionable silence. 

They pushed through the doors together, and Luna pointed out Hermione absentmindedly poking her eggs with a fork as she read at the Ravenclaw table. If it wasn’t for her bright maroon and gold scarf, she would have blended right in. Harry and Luna made their way over. They settled down on the bench, Luna next to Hermione and Harry across from her. Hermione set aside her book as Harry and Luna gathered their breakfast, pulling her own plate closer to herself. 

“Goodmorning, you two. How are you both?” 

“I’m good,” Harry said, having long decided not to bother his friends about his nightmares. There was no point in worrying over them, as all of them surely would because whether other people were worried about them or not, they came back every single night anyway. Worrying didn’t change anything. And, if they knew about them, they’d want to know what he had nightmares _about_. No way in Merlin’s soggy boots was he _ ever _telling them the contents of his nightmares.

“I’m well,” Luna said in the same dreamy voice as always. “I had a dream last night that a lovely Phoenix sang a song for me before being reborn. I believe that we will all be having a good week.” Luna always included them in her visions, which Harry thought was quite nice. She said that, since they were her very best friends, what applied to her applied to them.

Luna had told them towards the beginning of the year that she had Seer’s blood in her family, passed down from her Mum. She didn’t have much, but she had enough for prophetic dreams and intuition. Harry thought it was a rather wicked skill, and thought Luna was rather lucky that her dreams were about Phoenixes rather than her Uncle hurting her.

As Hermione asked Luna a few more questions about her dream, Harry pulled a small piece of boiled egg off his plate and pulled the collar of his shirt and robes away from his throat to expose the tiny white head of Aziraphale. The tiny snake peered up at him with sleepy eyes, and Harry grinned down at her.

“_G’morning, would you like some breakfast?” _He hissed. Aziraphale picked her head up off his collar bone, looking up at him. The cold must be getting to her, he thought, if she was this sleepy despite being wrapped around his neck under his warm clothes. Harry lifted the piece of egg to her mouth, and she gobbled it off his fingers whole, licking the tips of his fingers with her tiny, flickering tongue. Harry giggled at the sensation, before tucking his robes back over his familiar, leaving her to sleep.

As he picked up his fork and knife to begin eating, Ron dropped into the seat next to Hermione. 

“Morning.” He said, immediately beginning to fill a plate with food. Ginny passed behind Harry, ruffling his hair as she went to sit down by the twins and Lee Jordan, and she joined them in their whispering and writing immediately. That did not bode well for the rest of them.

A few minutes passed as they all ate their breakfasts. Generally, breakfast was a quiet affair, each of them more focused on waking up and eating than chatting. They would have the rest of their meals and classes to talk to each other, for now, they could bask in the companionable silence and just enjoy their food.

Hedwig swooped down from above. She carried no letters, but it wasn’t unusual for her to visit him in the mornings anyway. She hooted softly at him as she landed, and preened as he ran his fingers down her back and under her beak. After a moment of petting, Harry broke a piece of bacon into smaller pieces and fed them one by one to Hedwig.

As Harry fed Hedwig, he caught sight of Draco, standing uncertainly inside the entrance to the Great Hall. He looked uncertainly once more between the Slytherin table and the Ravenclaw table, and when he looked over at them again, Harry waved a hand at him, beckoning. Draco shot one last uncertain look towards the Slytherin table, before heading over to where Harry and his friends were sat.

Harry was sort of surprised. While he and Draco had agreed to start over, Harry had still almost expected Draco to pretend not to see him, and sit at the Slytherin table anyways. But, it seemed Harry had underestimated him. Draco had believed in what Harry had said, so he needed to too.

Draco slid into the seat next to Harry, slipping his bag under the bench. 

“Goodmorning, Draco,” Luna said without missing a beat. “Would you like to hear about the dream that I had last night? Hermione and I were just discussing the rather interesting implications of it.” 

Draco blinks at her in surprise.

“Um. Sure?” Luna launches into her explanation enthusiastically, and Draco looks a little shocked. Harry can’t blame him, but Luna has never played by anyone's rules except her own. Harry tunes out their conversation, instead mentally reviewing his classes for the day and going over what they would be learning in class today. They’re brewing today in Potions, aren’t they? Harry thinks of bubbling potions, chopping ingredients, stirring, _ don’t burn the bacon boy-- _

“Harry, you need to eat your breakfast,” Hermione says to him, breaking him from his thoughts. Harry blinks at her.

“I had some eggs.” He says, frowning. Hermione furrows her brow at him.

“Eggs are not enough, Harry.” 

“I’m not that hungry.” He says, and pushes his plate away from him a bit, shrugging. (But he is. He wants the sweet jams and the fluffy pastries, juicy fruits and the soft pieces of bacon. But freaks don’t get the good food, freaks get overcooked eggs and burnt toast and-- _ ten days in the cupboard, I don’t wanna see your nasty face until after the Hols are over, you little wench!) _

Now Ron is also frowning at him, invested enough in the conversation to set down his fork and focus on Harry. Harry tries to shake his head imperceptibly, to clear the images of Uncle Vernon cramming him into the cupboard or Aunt Petunia swinging the frying pan out of his eyes, because he’s halfway sure he’s not even at Hogwarts at all, just locked in the dark cupboard and wishing he was at Hogwarts so fiercely that he’d imagine himself there. 

“Oh honestly,” Draco says from next to him- which pretty much confirms that this is real, because he’d never be able to come up with something as odd as the fact that he and Draco Malfoy are _ friends- _ “If my food looked like that, I wouldn’t be hungry either. Are your glasses dirty, Po-- Harry? Surely you can see that there is better food available than _ that.” _Draco flicks his hand disdainfully in the direction of Harry’s plate, before scooping it up with a clear expression of disgust, and setting it down with a clatter to his left, where no one is sitting. When a fresh plate pops into existence before Harry, Draco starts plucking food off of the platters and setting it on Harry’s plate. He chose the best things off each plate, and a flash of panic went through Harry’s stomach.

“_ Stop!” _He said, panicked, before he could stop himself. “Stop, stop, you’re wasting it! That’s- that’s the good food, you can’t just waste it like that!”

“I... I’m not... wasting it?” Draco said, seeming to falter. Before, though it wasn’t as mean as they were used to, he seemed to be sneering and posturing out of habit. Now, it seemed Harry had thrown him for a loop. And Harry _ knew _how mad he sounded, going on about wasting food like most kids didn’t leave half their meal on their plates at the end of every meal. But Harry had spent the whole night dreaming of his uncle telling him how worthless he was, about how much he wasted and cost the Dursley’s. It seemed that the rational part of his brain that was screaming at him to calm down had absolutely no control, because the majority of his brain, which was panicking, had direct access to his mouth.

“I-- I can’t take that food, it’s not for me.” Harry said, feeling close to tears. He blinked hard against the burn in his eyes, determined to keep even a bit of his composure. “I can’t eat that.”

“Yes, you can Harry. This food is for everyone.” Hermione said, gently. Harry wanted to scream, and to cry, and to say _ it’s not for freaks! Freaks don’t deserve good things! _

“No.” he said, desperate for them to understand. He didn’t wanna say it. He didn’t want Uncle Vernon to get mad at him for telling, he didn’t want another beating, his back was still healing, _ please Uncle Vernon-- _

Draco set a plate in front of him, but it wasn’t the one full of food he wasn’t allowed. Instead, everything had a couple bites out of it, and looked about as good as most of the food Aunt Petunia could cook-- not bad, not good, just mediocre. Draco took the good food for himself.

“Well if you insist you don’t want this,” Draco said, sighing exaggeratedly “I’ll just have to eat it, since I already touched it. Eat mine, so it doesn’t go to waste.” Draco didn’t even look at him, just picked up the scone on his plate and took a bite. Harry stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to say something more, or take his food back, or yell, or… _ something. _ But he didn’t do anything, just ate the food on his plate. Hesitantly, Harry picked up his fork and took a bite of the eggs there. They tasted leagues better than his had-- warm, and not overcooked. When no one said or did anything after he swallowed, he began to eat faster. Some small part of his mind must have remembered his embarrassment that night a few weeks ago, because he refrained from making a mess or stuffing his face, but he ate quickly, sort of hunched over his plate. Head bowed as it was, Harry missed the bewildered look of confusion that Draco sent to Harry’s two oldest friends. Hermione moved her hand across her throat, and mouthed _ later. _Draco shot one last confused glance at the boy next to him, bent over his plate and scooping food into his mouth quickly. His impassive mask slid back over his face, and totally unnoticed by the small, messy haired teen, Draco, Hermione, Ron, and Luna all watched on with concern.

_______________________

  
  


Severus watched on in interest as Potter and Malfoy brewed a potion together. He hadn’t missed it the night before when Potter and his troop had crossed the hall to defiantly sit with Draco, and he definitely hadn’t missed the shift in power within Slytherin centered around his Godson. But most of all, he hadn’t missed the quiet debacle at breakfast, or the ensuing concerned glances all of Potter’s friends now threw him every few minutes. Even Draco, though his were far better concealed. 

Severus watched on covertly as Draco quietly pressed Potter through the motions of an acceptable potion. It had obviously been decided between the students which of them would carry Potter through the class today. And truly, Severus could not blame them. Those emerald eyes had the same look he had seen in them all those weeks ago as Potter had made a mess of himself at dinner, hunched over his plate and eating his food like a wild, starving animal. 

At some point during the class, Potter seemed to come back to himself. The vacant look in his eyes was gone, and he began to work on the potion with less prompting from his table partner. Severus continued to turn a blind eye, to the students knowledge, to the pair of them. 

Severus couldn’t help but be glad of this development, and sort of amazed at how quickly children were willing to forgive and forget. He had agonized for some time over how to direct his Godson out from under his father’s influences, while also not giving himself away as disloyal to the Dark Lord. He, like others, was not so naive as to think that the Dark Lord was truly vanquished that night 11 years ago. This was confirmed with Quirrel the previous year, and the Diary this year. 

But now, with Lucius gone, Severus had planned to gently ease Draco further from the Dark. Narcissa, while a Black, had no sympathy for the Dark Lord. Severus’ only obstacle would be the boy himself, and the attitudes and ideologies instilled into him his whole life, and not exposing himself in the process.

But, it seemed the job was being done for him. Harry Potter had seen the problem, and befriended Draco Malfoy in a matter of minutes. In less than 24 hours, the two boys had gone from sworn enemies to friends. Even better, this gave Severus access to Potter. If Draco became part of Potter’s group, surely Severus would be seeing and hearing more about Potter. This allowed him to keep an eye on Potter as he had over the Holiday while not arousing suspicion.

“Mr. Malfoy, stay after class.” Severus said neutrally. He saw Potter furrowed his brow at him, and then leaned in towards Draco to whisper something. His Godson shot him a glance, then whispered something back to the boy beside him. Potter relaxed incrementally, and went back to work. Draco followed.

Interesting.

By the end of class, mercifully without incident, Potter’s friends had stopped sending him glances, and the boy seemed to be back to his usual standard of quiet attentiveness. 

The students hurried to pack away their things when he called the end of class, chatting amongst themselves. He accepted the bottled potions one by one as the students exited the classroom, and noticed in interest as Potter, Granger, and even _ Weasley _ lingered behind with Draco, shooting him glances. The boy waved them away, and they all dutifully left the classroom, but Severus doubted they had not gotten much further than the corridor outside. It was interesting how loyal they all were. They had stopped being enemies with the boy for less than a day, and already they were treating him as one of their own. _ Quite _interesting. 

Draco approached his desk.

“You wanted to talk to me, Uncle Sev?” Severus inclined his head.

“I would like to know if you would like to come by for tea on Saturday at 3?” Draco’s face lit up, as it always did, at the prospect of spending time with his Godfather.

“Yeah!” he said enthusiastically.

“Wonderful. Off to class with you, Draco.” The blonde boy beamed at him, his grin toothy and young. He looked better, out from under Lucius Malfoy’s thumb, allowed to be his own person, rather than a carbon copy of his father. The boy dashed from the room, and Severus heard chatter out in the halls as he met up with the rest of his friends out in the hall.

Severus settled back in his desk chair, steepling his fingers together in thought. Truly, he never thought he’d live to see the day a Malfoy and a Potter became friends.

  
  


_______________________

“What did he want?” Ron asked as soon as Draco exited the Potions classroom. He fell into step beside Harry as they headed towards the main hallway, where he would head to Herbology, while Harry, Ron, and Hermione would head to Charms.

“He was just inviting me to tea Saturday.” at their confused looks, he tacked on, “Uncle Sev is my Godfather.” 

The trio nodded, before saying their goodbyes as they headed their separate ways to class.

“Y’know.” Ron said. “I never would have figured we would be friends with _ Malfoy _of all people. It’s kinda funny, how much your opinion of someone can change so fast.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “But really, I think we just needed to give him the chance. He probably had to act a certain way for his dad and to fit in in Slytherin, and now that he doesn’t have to, he can be his own person, who is someone we can be friends with.” 

“I hate to say that I’m glad his father was arrested, but… I am glad that Draco has the chance to be his own person, make his own friends, and live his own life without his father trying to control him.” Hermione said. 

Harry couldn’t help but disagree with Hermione. He _ was _glad that Draco’s father had been arrested. Sure, Draco probably loved him in his own estranged way, but Harry knew firsthand what it was like to live under the control of someone. He was glad Draco was free from that, even if he might never be. 

_______________________

Over the next couple weeks, things settled into a sort of rhythm. Oliver Wood began Quidditch practices again, now that the school was officially safe, and Harry was worked to exhaustion every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. This wasn’t quite enough to prevent his nightmares, but he would take more sleep with nightmares over insomnia peppered with nightmares. He spent his meals and every break he had with Draco, Hermione, Ron, and Luna. They worked in the library together on their homework, and chatted amiably while they worked.

Draco couldn’t have fit in better with their group if he had been friends with them from the start. He and Harry traded barbs as they always had, but now they were tinged with laughter rather than malice. Draco and Hermione had to be dragged from the library bodily by the other three, sometimes, so engrossed in one book or another that they would miss the dinner or curfew bells. Ron and Draco played chess together, and Ron seemed very glad to have finally found someone who could present a challenge to him, because even Luna and Hermione, who were leagues better at chess than Harry, rarely won against Ron. Although, Luna did put up quite the fight. 

Ginny, after avoiding them for some while, seemed to have decided to give Draco another chance, and sat herself down at the table with the rest of them to eat on Saturday. Fred and George followed after her, squishing Draco, Harry, and Ron together on the opposite side of the table from where Hermione, Luna, and Ginny were sat. Hermione barely paused in her talking long enough to acknowledge the other girl before she was off on another tangent that Harry had a hard time following. Almost without seeming to realize she was doing so, Hermione scooped a serving of carrots off the platter and slipped them onto Harry’s plate as she debated fiercely with Draco over whatever it was that the two of them had been discussing all day. They had stopped on and off, always seeming like they were done, before the other came up with another counterpoint again. Ron, Harry, and Luna had been content to just watch the verbal sparring match all day, amused by their friends antics.

Harry ate his food quietly, enjoying the abundance and warmth of it. It didn’t seem to matter how many meals he got at Hogwarts, he always felt in awe of the food every single time. He had spent the first 11 years of his life eating scraps, so he figured it would take some time yet to get used to the regularity and quality of the meals here. Especially when he had to return to the Dursley’s ever summer and go back to the way things had been.

Harry shook his head surreptitiously to try and rid himself of the thoughts. It seemed no matter what he did, his thoughts always looped back to that god forsaken place. He often felt as if his uncle or aunt were right behind him, waiting for the moment he let his guard down to strike him with a belt or a frying pan. 

But really, was that such an absurd thought? No matter how many friends he made at Hogwarts, no matter how famous or well-known or anything else he was here in the Wizarding World, no one truly cared enough to see that what was going on with their perfect golden boy. No one truly cared enough to come and take him away from the Dursley’s for good. 

At the same time, did he really want anyone to? He knew better than to hope for someone to come and save him. They all thought he was their savior, but what kind of savior was he if he couldn’t stand up to a couple of dimwitted, bullying Muggles? And beyond that, he couldn’t imagine ever telling someone what life was really like at the Dursley’s. All the humiliation and pain he had suffered by their hands was better kept stuffed deep down inside him, somewhere that no one else could ever see. Because he was truly a failure of a hero if he couldn’t even do anything to save _ himself. _

Harry felt the telltale burning behind his eyes, but pushed it down as he always did. He hadn’t cried in a long time, and he wouldn’t start snivelling and feeling sorry for himself _ now_, after all this time. 

He was just being a crybaby. The Dursley’s were what he deserved, and he was sure everyone knew it. Dumbledore had sent him back to them for another summer of torture even when Harry had asked outright not to go back, and the man was practically all-seeing, so there was no way he didn’t know everything going on inside of Number 4 Privet Drive. He had killed his parents, and gotten his friends hurt in first year. He didn’t deserve anything more than the Dursley’s. (Once a freak, always a freak.)

Harry pinched his thigh, hard, forcing himself from his thoughts. He couldn’t get lost in his head feeling sorry for himself over things he didn’t deserve to change. Not here, not now, not _ ever. _This was his lot in life to bare.

Harry forced himself to tune back into the conversation, and listened with an unusual amount of attentiveness as Hermione and Draco continued to talk one another’s ears off.

_______________________

  
  


Draco was a pace behind his friends as they left the Great Hall. He needed to head towards Uncle Sev’s rooms soon for tea, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the redheaded girl in front of him. In a strange way, he could understand how Harry, Hermione, and even Ron had befriended him. He had seen the understanding in Harry’s eyes as he had come over to the Slytherin table, and knew that the other boy understood far more than the other two what he was going through. Ron and Hermione followed where Harry went, and Luna just seemed to do whatever was least expected of her. The four of them coming to him made _sense. _

What he didn’t understand, however, was how Ginny Weasley could manage to forgive him for what Father had done to her. He had given her a Dark Artefact, with the express purpose to have it possess her. He had understood when she didn’t sit with her friends when he was there, had understood her efforts to avoid him.She had joined them last night for dinner, and every meal since then, without so much as a dark look in his direction. And today, she had sat with them at lunch, and spoken to him as she would with anyone else-- he didn’t understand how she could even bear to look him in the eye, much less include him in her conversations.

Before he could think too much about it,- damn, he was spending too much time surrounded by Gryffindors- he lurched forward and tapped Ginny on the shoulder. The younger girl looked over her shoulder at him, before dropping back from where she had been listening to Hermione and Ron, falling into step with Draco. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“How can you even look at me, after everything my father did to you?” He blurted out. The tips of his ears tinged red at such blatant honesty, but he did nothing to take back his words.

Ginny leveled him with a surveying look that made her appear so much wiser than any eleven year old had any right to be. 

“Because I’m not the only one your father hurt.” Her hand dropped into his, and she squeezed it, smiling at him.

Draco couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so he let himself be led outside with everyone else.

_______________________

  
  


When Draco knocked on his door at 2:58 on Saturday, Severus was surprised to open the door upon a windswept, grass covered, beaming young boy. Severus has rarely seen the boy so disheveled, with the boy having learnt from a young age to be as prim and proper as his Father directed. A Malfpy's image was always to be upheld, Severus had heard him say many a time before. It’s a good look on him, happy and carefree, and not quite one Severus ever believed he would see. 

“Hi, Uncle Sev!”

“Hello, Draco. Bathing in grass, are we?” He said, raising a bemused eyebrow and moving to the side to admit the boy into his rooms.

Draco shot him a sheepish look, and Severus just sighed exasperatedly, before banishing all the offending foliage with a wave of his wand.

Draco bounced over to the couch in his sitting room, where a tray of tea was waiting, brought by the house elves at his request. Severus had joined him in the chair opposite, pouring them both a mug. 

“I’ve noticed your interactions with Potter, Granger, Weasley, and Lovegood over the past couple weeks. I hope that none of your housemates have bothered you over it?” This was the first time that Severus had really spoken to Draco about the obvious divide between him and the rest of his house. He had waited, not wanting to draw attention to such a fresh wound.

“No, sir. They mostly ignore me now, for the most part.”

“_ Now?” _Severus asked sharply. The boy looked down at the mug of tea in his hand, before taking a long sip. Stalling. Finally, just when Severus was going to ask again, Draco spoke.

“When… when I first got back to school that first day, some people said… stuff. About Father. A couple tripping jinxes, and someone ripped up some of my parchment, but really nothing too bad. Well, _ I _ didn’t think it was anything too bad, but when I mentioned it to Harry the next day, when I was asking to borrow some parchment, and he looked so _ mad. _He almost looked like he was gonna go after them himself, but Hermione calmed him down. I told him it didn’t matter, but he didn’t really look like he was listening.

“The next day, Luna gave me a little bundle of flowers to put under my bed, and Hermione showed me this cool charm that sets off a siren if anyone you don’t want to comes too close to where you place it. And then Ron just said to me, “Harry took care of it.” I don’t know what he did, but they all stopped, so I’m not gonna ask any questions.”

Severus assessed him, wondering the same question. What _ had _ Potter done to stop those students? What 12-year-old boy could intimidate anyone? Beyond that, _ who _ were these students? They had better not have been one of his Snakes. But really, it could have been any number of students. Slytherins had never been held in the highest regard- by students _ or _teachers- so House unity was a necessity. But when one’s own House turned its back on a member, they were left to fend for themselves. With Draco’s father in Azkaban for misuse of a Dark Artefact, there were countless students who would be willing to attack a 12 year old in the name of “justice.” 

“While I am glad that your peers have given you aid, I would prefer that next time, you come to _ me _with this information.”

Draco nodded.

“They’re wonderful friends.” Draco said quietly, thoughtfully, after a long moment. “I’ve had friends before, but not… not without us wanting things from each other, or because our parents said so, or because their family name meant that that they could be useful. They want to be friends just because they want to. They saw me sitting alone at that table, and they knew what that was like, and they just… decided that we were going to be friends.” He sounds almost in wonder at the idea.

“True friends are hard to come by.” Severus said, just as quiet. He was impressed and glad for his Godson, able to move on so easily from his father’s influence.

“Even Hermione. I’ve been told my whole life that Muggles are… lesser, like animals. But Hermione’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. And Harry was raised by Muggles, so how bad can they really be?”

“Correct, Mr. Malfoy. Muggles, while disadvantaged at their lack of magic, are people nonetheless. People like your father disagree, but they are wrong.” After a moment of hesitation, Snape added. “I, myself, am a Half-blood.”

“I didn't know that, sir.”

“Not many people do.”

They drank their tea in silence for a moment, contemplative, before Severus spoke again, hoping to lighten the mood, and drag himself from his thoughts.

“How are your classes going?”

“Okay, I guess. It’s a lot easier when I can ask Hermione questions- I swear she’s read every book in the library- and I don’t think I’m doing too bad in any class except Defense.”

“And for that I won’t begrudge you. Lockhart is a simpering idiot, and should never have been allowed to teach Defense at this school.”

“I think Hermione’s got top spot in most classes, but really, I don’t mind too much. I’ve got top in Potions, which is what I really care about anyways. Actually, I think Ron has top in Transfiguration. He got a new wand over break- Harry sent him a certificate for Ollivander’s, since he was using one of his brother’s old ones- and apparently it’s helped him loads, now that it actually listens to him.”

“He was using one of his brother’s old wands?” Severus asked in surprise. He knew that the Weasley’s didn’t exactly have an excess of money, but for them to send one of their sons to Hogwarts with a second hand wand? Severus filed the information away for later, possibly to ask if Albus had the Weasley’s receiving the monetary stipend Hogwarts provided for less well off students. If they weren’t, they needed to be. Forcing an 11 year old to learn magic with someone else's wand could permanently stunt their magic, never mind their performance in class. 

“Yeah. He said that Charlie’s wand had a bit of Unicorn Hair poking out at the end, so he got himself a new one, and his parents gave him to it when he was starting school, rather than taking him to get a new one.” Draco wrinkled his nose. No matter what new friends he procured, Draco _ had _grown up rich and spoiled, Severus thought. 

“Either way, he has a new one now, thanks to Mr. Potter.” Draco nodded.

“Yeah, Harry apparently got everyone really nice Christmas presents. He said he even gave Christmas presents to the Professors! Did you get one, Uncle Sev?”

Severus started in surprise. He had gotten very few Christmas presents this year, just like any other year. He did not have many friends, or acquaintances for that matter, and not many students seemed endeared by the dour Potions master. 

But this year, same as the last, he had received an unmarked, unsigned parcel, containing two wonderfully crafted pieces of Potions equipment, and strawberry biscuits. He’d told absolutely no one about his favor towards that particular flavor, unwilling to undergo the likely to follow ridicule that the “Bat of the Dungeons” preferred such a flowery taste. Nevertheless, this anonymous gifter had managed to give him two invaluable gifts and uncover a secret Severus had never told.

And this anonymous gifter, surprisingly, was Harry Potter. Severus knew that several of the other Professors (all one’s Harry had, now that he thought of it) had, too, received gifts in a similar vein. Severus knew that small gifts were often given to teachers in the Muggle world, but had found that the tradition did not exist within the Wizarding World. Was that why the boy had left the parcels unsigned?

“I… did. But as it was unsigned, I did not realize it was from Mr. Potter.”

“Really? That’s kinda weird that he went through all the effort to get you all presents, but then didn’t write his name.” 

“It is rather odd. Either way, the present was enjoyable.”

“Do you want me to ask him why, sir?”

Severus held up a hand.

“No, Draco, I shall ask him myself, if I get the chance. It is of no great importance.”

“Ok, Uncle Sev.” Draco checked his watch, and his eyes went wide. “Blimey! I said I’d be done at 3:45, it’s already 4! Goodbye, Uncle Sev!” Draco exclaimed, jumping up off the couch. He rushed over to Severus, squeezing him tight around the middle for barely a second, before rushing out the door with all the grace and manners of a 12 year old boy. Severus sighed, shaking his head at the child. Never before had the boy been so eager to get back to his friends, nor as lively and unreserved as he had been as of late.

Over their past few customary Saturday-at-3-pm meetings for tea, Severus had noticed how the boy slowly but surely exited his shell. Severus was amazed at what a few weeks surrounded by freer peers could do to his normally-so-reserved Godson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. Draco, huh? Draco is the 4th character who was not in my original plans for this story (luna, snape, Aziraphale, and now Draco!) but he snuck in anyways to steal the show. damnit, Draco, must you always be the center of attention???
> 
> anyways. thoughts? comments and kudos, please.
> 
> come chat with me on twit @vennatfinn! 
> 
> also I only have around 3k of this story still to post before I'm out of buffer. yikes.


	8. 8: On the Quidditch Pitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quidditch starts up again. There are some... unintended consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is one of my favorite chapters! I'm posting it a few days earlier than I intended because I didn't want to wait any longer. oops!
> 
> anyways, college has started up again, but I've got an odd break every tues/thurs, so I'm hoping to use that time to write! Let's see how well that actually goes lol. 
> 
> also, PLEASE don't look too hard at the medical stuff. I needed it for plot reasons. 
> 
> enjoy!

The next few weeks passed in a haze of Quidditch, homework, and hanging out with his friends whenever he could. Before he knew it, it was March, and time for a Quidditch match between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. Draco had, begrudgingly, agreed to cheer for Harry at Ron’s insistence, but  _ not  _ for Gryffindor. He was  _ very  _ clear with them on that. 

The morning of the match, Harry was as nervous as always. It didn’t seem to matter how many games they played, or how much Harry loved flying, he always got nervous before games. Stomach twisted in knots, Harry poked at his burnt toast and overcooked eggs.

“You need to eat to keep your strength up--”

“--dear Harrykins, otherwise--”

“-- you’ll be blown right off your broom!” The twins finished together, smiling kindly at him from across the table. Each of them had a maroon F on the left cheek and a gold G on the right. The letters covered up the particular freckle that Harry used to tell them apart, so he wasn’t sure who was who. Harry smiled wanly at the two of them.

“Hasn’t happened yet, has it?”

Both Fred and George’s brow creased at him, and Harry was almost surprised at the seriousness of their expressions. But, before either of them could say anything, Luna sat down next to Harry. Harry absentmindedly said Good Morning, but when the twins broke into snorts and giggles, Harry turned to look at Luna. Atop her head sat a huge lion’s head, and from which a badger was grasped. Harry’s mouth dropped open at the extravagant hat, before breaking into a smile. 

“Wow! That looks amazing, Luna!” Harry said sincerely. She beamed at him.

“Thank you, Harry. Watch this!” Luna tapped her wand to the side of the hat, and the stuffed lion emitted an ear-shattering roar, which echoed around the fairly empty Great Hall a few seconds after the hat grew quiet. 

“Blimey, Luna!” The twins said in unison. Luna turned her beaming smile on the two of them.

“You really like it?” She asked, and the three of them nodded emphatically. The rest of the Great Hall was still staring at them, but seeing as they were there earlier than everyone else (Oliver wanted them to warm up before the game), it wasn’t even enough people to faze Harry. Luna’s excitement seemed to ease Harry’s stomach, and he scooped up a forkful of eggs as the twins pestered Luna into telling them how she had charmed her hat. Harry figured that they were planning on transfiguring a Professor’s hat, rather than making one of their own, but Luna seemed happy to tell them, so he didn’t say anything. Actually Luna could be surprisingly conniving, maybe she knew that’s what they were planning, and that’s  _ why  _ she was telling them.

The watches on George and Fred’s wrists chimed in tandem, abruptly cutting off their conversation with Luna.

“Time to head to the pitch.” Harry directed at Luna, and she smiled at him encouragingly.

“Good Luck, Harry. You still have that crystal I gave you, right?” Luna asked. Harry nodded in return.

“Haven't taken it off since you gave it to me last week. I have that sprout of… bamboo? That you gave me yesterday, too. It’s in my pocket.”

“Lucky bamboo.” Luna corrected absentmindedly. “Be safe, please? I had… an odd dream.”

“Tell me about it later, okay? We can talk through it.” Harry said, smiling kindly. Some of the worries drained from her face, and she smiled back. 

“Ok, Harry. Listen for the lion!” She called after him as he and the twins headed towards the door. He smiled at her over his shoulder and sent her a thumbs up.

Before Harry seemed to realize it, the Snitch flew from Madam Hooch’s hand, and he watched as it seemed to disappear into thin air.

Harry began slow laps around the stadium. Despite how high up he was, he could still hear the deafening roar of Luna’s hat, and smiled at the Gryffindor section, sending a jaunty wave towards them. He knew that Ron and Hermione liked to keep a binocular clad eye on him the whole game, after that disastrous first game in First Year, when his broom had bucked around and almost thrown him off.

After that, Harry began to block out the world around him, until the only thing around him was the game and the whistle of wind in his ears. He continued his laps around the field, unbothered. He tuned back into Lee Jordan’s commentary every so often, and he knew that Gryffindor was significantly in the lead. He especially wasn’t worried about the Hufflepuff Seeker. He knew that the one from the year previous had graduated and had heard through rumors that the pickings within Hufflepuff had been slim, and with their hands tied, they had picked a lackluster Seeker. 

And then suddenly, there! Across the field, Harry saw a glimmer of gold. The Hufflepuff Seeker, her back turned to the Snitch, hadn’t seen it. Harry knew that as soon as he darted for it, the other Seeker would see, and follow. But he was confident that, even though she was closer, he could reach it before she could. It would be close, but he was sure that he’d get it before her. Harry tucked himself low on his broom, and then he was off like a shot, covering a quarter of the distance in only a few seconds. He was even with the Hufflepuff seeker by the time she realized where he was headed, and Harry grimaced at her ignorance. Down below, Lee Jordan was crowing (much to McGonagall's audible chagrin) about the Snitch being spotted. The Hufflepuff girl was tight on his tail, but Harry’s Nimbus 2000 was just plain faster than her broom. He was smaller, too, and probably lighter. The gap between them was growing. 

But, Harry could see, that was not the case of an incoming Bludger. Fred and George, despite being headed towards him, were too far away. Harry would have to duck out of the way to avoid being hit by the Bludger. But the Hufflepuff girl, in her rookie ignorance, didn’t even seem to notice the impending ball. If Harry ducked out of the way, She would catch the Snitch before him. If she caught the snitch first, Hufflepuff would win. Then the whole House would be mad at him all over again, and they were only just getting over the whole Heir business. 

Harry grit his teeth, and stretched his arm out in front of him, squeezing his eyes shut to avoid looking at the impending Bludger. Seconds after his fingers closed around the cool, shivering metal of the Snitch, the Bludger slammed mercilessly into his shoulder. Snitch clenched tightly in his fist, Harry was sent spinning from the force of the hit. Harry bit down on his tongue so hard, in an effort to stifle his screams, that he tasted blood. He knew from the pop immediately following the hit that his shoulder had come out of its socket. 

Harry pried his eyes open, after a few seconds of spinning, and applied the proper counter force to stop the tailspin he had gone into. Finally still, Harry gently pulled the Snitch from his now floppy arm, before holding it aloft in triumph. Down below, the stands went wild. Hufflepuff booed loudly but was overcome with the force of cheers from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Harry floated down to the ground as Lee Jordan screamed triumphantly into the microphone.

Harry gingerly disembarked, gritting his teeth as he saw the flood of people coming towards him, who were all sure to want to pat him on the shoulder. The Gryffindor team landed around him, and Fred and George hurried over.

“Harry!” cried Fred. The sweat on his face had cut through the letter on his cheek, and Harry could finally tell the two of them apart now.“Are you alright? I’m sorry about the Bludger, that Hufflepuff beater absolutely  _ sent  _ it.”

“S’alright,” Harry said, forcing a smile. He deliberately kept his arm perfectly still, scared at what he would do if he was forced to move it. 

“Harry!” George cried, and Harry jumped, which jarred his shoulder. He fought down the hiss and tears of pain. 

“What?” he said frantically. 

“Your mouth is full of blood. Merlin, your smile is terrifying.”

Harry swallowed against the metallic taste in his mouth, sucking at his teeth.

“Sorry.” He said. “Bit my tongue.” before either of the twins could say anything else, he turned to find Oliver Wood, to give him the snitch, so he could get to the changing rooms and put his shoulder back in the socket before anyone could bother him about it. He had done it before, once, when Uncle Vernon had yanked him so hard it had come loose. It had taken several tries, and a lot of pain, before he got it right. He had made sure after that to know how to do it himself, properly, so he wouldn’t be caught so vulnerable again. 

Before he could go anywhere, however, his Captain came up and clapped him on the shoulder. The out-of-its-socket shoulder. Presumably, he had also made some comment or another on their performance, but Harry missed it as he gasped, his vision going white. His knees gave out, but before he could call out, a hand slid under his shoulders to catch him. This time, he did scream, as the entire weight of his body pulled at his shoulder. 

And then, he promptly passed out.

_______________________

  
  


Harry’s vision swam as he looked upwards, to where it seemed a whole crowd of people were gathered above his head. Slowly, his vision focused until he could make out the concerned and worried faces of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Unlike his vision, the sounds around him slammed into him all at once, and he made an aborted movement to cover his ears before a spike of pain shot through his shoulder. 

“Easy there, Harry,” said one of the twins. He placed his hand gently across Harry’s shoulder, to stop him from moving it. Harry groaned in pain. 

“What happened?” Asked someone to the right of him. He felt too fuzzy still to really know who it was. 

“Must’ve been the Bludger.” Said someone else.

“We need to get him to Madam Pomfrey.” said the twin who wasn’t holding down his arm. The one who was nodded. 

“Get a Professor.” Said one of the twins over his head, to someone out of his sightline.

“No…” he moaned. “No Pomfrey. I’m fine.” He shoved the hand off his shoulder with his uninjured arm, before forcing himself upright. His shoulder gave a twinge of pain, and the sensation helped cut through the fog in his head some. 

“I’m fine,” he said again, steadier. “Probably just bruised.”

“Stay still!” Said someone behind him, but he ignored the voice, using his good arm to force himself to his feet. He swayed for a terrible second but stayed upright. Once there, he almost wished he was still on the ground because he could feel the eyes of the whole school on him, all pointing and talking and staring. 

“Most people don’t  _ pass out  _ from a bruise, Harry.” one of the twins argued. 

“I’m not most people.” he shot back sarcastically. “And I can handle this myself, alright? Bugger off.” 

Before either of the twins could argue with him, Hermione, Ron, Luna, Draco, and Ginny all burst from the crowd. Hermione, at the lead, had her wand out, looking angry and worried. All of them, in fact, looked rather worried, and Harry groaned internally at the thought of how much mothering the lot of them were going to be doing for the next week, all watching him like a hawk.

“I’m alright, you lot.”

“Harry, we saw you faint!” Ginny argued. Harry frowned at her.

“I did not  _ faint,  _ it’s only some bruises. I can deal with it myself.” He said defensively. The thought of them forcing him to show them his injury seemed too much. Harry had always,  _ always,  _ patched himself up. There had never been anyone else to. The thought of letting someone poke and prod him for something as trivial as this sent his heart thrumming. 

“It could’ve knocked your shoulder out of its joint, Harry, or even broken your collarbone! This is serious! You need to see Madam Pomfrey.” 

When Hermione said that, Harry flinched, and it sent a jolt of pain through his shoulder, causing him to hiss. Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, and  _ damn,  _ why did she have to know so much?

“You  _ are injured _ ! Harry, this is serious, go to Madam Pomfrey,  _ now!”  _ Hermione’s voice was high in concern, and behind her, all of his friends had perfectly mirrored expressions of concern. Harry gritted his teeth.

“It’s not bad. I can deal with it  _ myself.”  _ Harry said angrily, before steeling himself and wrapping his good arm around his bad one. Distantly he heard Hermione protesting, but he ignored her, pulling his arm forward and straight out as he had read he was supposed to. There was a small  _ click!  _ And a blaze of white-hot pain that sent Harry doubling over, choking down another scream.

After a moment of breathing deeply, the feeling passed, until all that remained in his shoulder was a dull ache, which flared to a sharp prickle as he carefully, experimentally, rolled his shoulder around, straightening up. As he straightened, Harry met Hermione’s eyes defiantly, but before she could say anything, Professor Snape was coming up beside them. 

“Are you hurt, Mr. Potter?” He asked, voice deep and silky in concern. Before he could tell him that he wasn’t, Ron interjected.

“Yes! The Bludger did something to his shoulder, Hermione said it was serious.”

Harry glared at his friends, but Ron just shrugged apologetically.

“Is this true, Mr. Potter?” Snape asked. 

“No.” He said, as evenly as he could. “As you can see, it’s perfectly fine.” He said, gritting his teeth before raising his arm up, down, and then rolling it once. Harry hoped that was enough to convince him because he wasn’t quite sure that he could do that again without crying or biting another hole into his tongue. 

Snape looked him over speculatively, before waving his wand over Harry. Behind him, several other professors had gathered, but none of them intervened. As Snape’s wand passed by his shoulder, it emitted a light blue glow but did nothing more. 

“It appears Mr. Potter is telling the truth.” Snape said, “He has only sustained some bruising and minor muscle soreness. I will have Madam Pomfrey send along a bruise salve, but other than that, do not cause too much strain to the appendage and you will be fine.” With that, Snape turned with a swirl of dark robes and carved a path through the crowd back to the castle. Harry sent his friends a triumphant glare, before handing Madam Hooch the Snitch, gathering his broom, and heading to the locker rooms, hoping to ignore the likely to follow interrogation from his friends for as long as possible. 

_______________________

“A dislocated shoulder is very painful, and it makes sense that the scan only indicated bruising and soreness, once the shoulder’s back in its joint, that’s all that’s left. But why was Harry so insistent to fix it himself? It’s not like he’s scared of Madam Pomfrey, he’s been to the Hospital Wing enough times!” Hermione said angrily. Her friends, a few paces behind her to avoid the flying mane of hair in her wake, were just as confused and upset as she was. 

It was sort of horrifying, Draco thought to himself, being up close to the whirlwind that was Harry Potter and His Friends, rather than being an outside observer to the chaos.

“Well…” hedged Ron. “There was this time, in First Year, when Harry got this wicked cut on his arm from walking into a portrait, and it was kinda bleeding, but no matter what I said he wouldn’t let me go get Madam Pomfrey. He didn’t really sound like he was afraid of her but more like... He didn’t want me to tell anyone, because he would look like a pansy. He didn’t say it, but he kept saying it was silly to bother her for something so little, only it  _ wasn’t  _ so little.” 

“But why!” burst out Hermione, whirling around. The rest of them stopped abruptly. “I don’t understand! If he had gone to Madam Pomfrey,  _ for either of those things,  _ she could have taken care of the problem in a few seconds, and without much pain.”

Hermione finally sat, plopping down onto the grassy hillside a few paces from the entrance to the castle. The rest of them sat down around her. None of them really knew what to say in response to her.

“My father…” Draco paused, clearing his throat, and tried again. “Sometimes, my father would say stuff like that. He would say that whinging over every little thing was what cry babies did. Maybe… maybe his family is like that, but he took it too seriously?” He didn’t like to think too long about all the things his father had said to him.

“My parents have said that too, but for something serious enough that he wouldn’t wanna go to Madam Pomfrey even when he was in a lot of pain?” Ginny asked. They sat in silence, unsure what to do about any of this. They didn’t know what it all meant, just that it meant  _ something,  _ but it was a something Harry obviously didn’t want to talk about. Eventually, the lunch bell rang through the open area, coming from seemingly nowhere, and they got to their feet, trudging back inside.

_______________________

  
  


Harry avoided his friends for the rest of the day. When he saw them again, and they pestered him about the scene on the field, he ignored them.

He almost wished they would ask  _ Harry, how did you know how to do that?  _ or  _ Has this happened to you before?  _ but he didn’t know what he would say if they asked. So he just ignored it every time they brought it up until they finally let it go.

(He almost wished they wouldn’t.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ruh-roh, I only have 1500 words of buffer left pre-written. fingers crossed I can get some more written out before this time next month! expect the update in that amount of time at the longest, hopefully it's only 2-3 weeks tho (: 
> 
> comment and kudos PLEASE!!!!! they keep me motivated
> 
> follow me on twit @vennatfinn
> 
> (also shut up I know Cedric is Hufflepuff seeker. maybe he joined late for some reason? i don't care honestly)


	9. 9: Uncle Sev and Summer Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and finally, the end of book 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very much later than i promised! sorry, corona craziness, class craziness... regular old laziness. anyways it's summer now, and i've already started on book 2. anyways, enjoy the chapter!!

When Severus had asked after Draco’s classes during this week’s tea, the boy had launched into his- this one by far the longest- weakly complaints about Lockhart and his idiocy. 

“--And he doesn’t even  _ teach class  _ anymore! Not that anything he was doing before could really count as teaching, just recitation of his “greatest adventures,” but at least he was doing  _ something!  _ He just spends the whole class at his desk, either looking at his reflection or writing his book. He says this one is about his “daring defeat of the Basilisk.” He doesn’t even bother  _ Harry  _ anymore! He used to make him come up to the front of almost every class to act out one scene or another, but now he just tells us to read something educational, and then doesn’t look at us once.” 

And really, that’s his downfall. Severus may not be the very best teacher, but he is gifted in his chosen profession and knows at the very least some things you should  _ not  _ do while in charge of a classroom. Such as ignore all of your students, not teach them anything, yet expect them to behave. Before he can really think any further, he is opening his mouth.

(Draco must be passing on Gryffindor germs to him via proxy.)

“Invite your little friends to tea next Saturday, and I will endeavor to teach you, little rapscallions, some  _ actual  _ Defense.” He says, long-suffering and world-weary.

He is only given a moment to think about what  _ precisely  _ he has just offered to do before Draco is agreeing with enthusiasm. 

When Draco departs, off again to meet his friends, Severus cannot help but feel that he will come to regret this decision. 

He sighs, again, before going to pour himself a measure of Firewhiskey.

_______________________

  
  


When Draco had bounced up to them after his tea with Snape to extend an invitation to the rest of them, Harry was shocked. He had almost convinced himself that the kind, concerned Snape of the Christmas Hols had been a figment of his desperate imagination. But, apparently, it wasn’t. 

“All of us?” Ron asked Draco incredulously. 

“All of you.” Draco agreed. “I was telling him about how bad Lockhart has been lately, and he offered to teach us some Defense!”

“Professor Lockhart has been rather… lax lately.” Hermione added thoughtfully.

Everyone looked at Hermione in shock. Hermione “I’ll Die Before I Disrespect Authority” Granger had just said that a teacher was doing a less than stellar job. She might as well have charmed her hair purple and done a jig, for how surprising this was. Ron burst into laughter.

“There may be hope for you yet!” He cried between giggles.

_______________________

  
  


Harry spends the week leading up to Saturday very nervous. He doesn’t say anything, mostly because he doesn’t want to bother his friends, but also because one of them seems to be nearly as nervous as he is. He can’t help wondering, though, if Snape is going to be kind and gentle like he was over Hols, or if he is going to treat him just like any other student. He knows, truly, that he doesn’t deserve the concern and care from this kind man, but he can’t help  _ wanting  _ it. 

No matter how much he dreads it, Saturday still comes. It dawns, bright and cheery, and Harry pulls back the curtains from his four-poster to welcome the sunlight in. On Saturdays, he’s usually up even earlier than normal, and today is no exception. Harry thinks, for one desperate moment, of faking ill and avoiding the whole thing altogether. 

But then he remembers the excited look on Draco’s face, and well… he really could use some help in Defense. He trudged his way out of bed and into his least raggedy clothes.

Harry is in the Common Room for half an hour working on homework before any of his friends are awake. When Ron finally stumbles off the stairs, still bleary-eyed, they head to the Great Hall together and sit at the Ravenclaw table with Luna and an excited Draco.

Breakfast, and the rest of the morning before tea with Snape, passed in a haze for Harry. He knew that he had participated in conversations with his friends out on the lawn, knew that they must have gone to lunch, have done  _ something  _ substantial until 3 in the afternoon, but he is so consumed by his worried thoughts that he would be hard-pressed to come up with any specific details of their day.

He can’t stop his mind from looping around two scenes. The first, one of the many pleasant meals Harry had had with Snape over Christmas break. The second, the aloof manner in which Snape treated him during class. And really, he knew that the man treated him with considerable kindness, given his well-renowned disposition for hatred towards Gryffindors, but Harry couldn’t help his yearning for that sliver of a kind man he had gotten a peek at over the Holiday.

Finally, it was 3’o’clock. 

Draco leads them unerringly deeper into the dungeons, and Harry shivered as a cold draft blew past him. In front of him, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny were all following Draco, unbothered. Luna, too, although Harry wasn’t entirely sure how she managed not to trip over the uneven flagstones beneath their feet, considering she was looking up at the ceiling in wonder. Harry had looked around them when he had first seen her look around but had been unable to see whatever she was seeing. He shrugged it off, unconcerned. He would ask her about it later. 

Finally, they were in front of the door to Snape’s room. Or, at least, Harry hoped they were, otherwise Draco might have gone mad, leading them all to a blank expanse of wall and knocking on it. He wondered, for a moment, how Draco had known to come to this specific bit of wall before his eyes caught on the sconce to the right of them. This one was just ever so slightly different from the rest, the bottom curve of it curling subtly into and  _ S.  _ Harry smiled at the irony.

_ S for Scary Slytherin Severus Snape.  _ He snickered to himself silently. 

The huge stones that made up the walls of Hogwarts slid apart, folding in on themselves, to reveal Snape, backlit by the cheery fire in his rooms. The expression on his face was much darker, but he ushered them all in any way, stepping aside out of the way.

As they filed into his rooms, Draco still bouncing excitedly, Harry felt a prickle of anxiety settling in under his skin, and a pressure building up in his skull. The expression on Snape’s face sent a bolt of terror through Harry, every single one of his instincts screaming at him  _ angry man!!! Angry man!!!! Run run run hide--  _ But Harry stuffed the voice deep down inside him, struggling to remember the kind Snape from over Christmas break. As he struggled to keep his panic down, the stones behind them slid back together, sealing themselves into a smooth wall once more, looking no different from the inside than they did from out.

Draco darted forward, wrapping his arms around Snape in a lightning-quick hug, and Harry struggled to keep still, and not leap to the other boy, and pull him out of range of the dark-haired man. But as Draco backed away, smiling sheepishly, Harry watched in awe as the expression on Snape’s face softened, instead of hardening like he had expected it too. Some of the roiling in his gut quelled at the sight.

“I trust you’ve all come prepared to learn?” Snape’s voice was as silky smooth as always, but it lacked some of the bite he usually had in class. They all nodded their heads, some of them (Draco, Hermione) eagerly, others (Ron, Ginny) dismally. Ron had complained extensively about  _ learning  _ on a  _ Saturday  _ but had been unable to say no in the face of Draco and Hermione’s combined enthusiasm. 

“We will start with an assessment of all of your skills. No use wasting our time going over things you already know.” He glanced at Ginny and Luna. “I will not expect the both of you to know as much as the rest of them, but considering your dismal instructors the past two years, I can’t expect you’re much farther behind the rest of them”

And so it went. Snape asked them to perform a few spells each on a stuffed dummy that he had conjured for their use. He quizzed them on their knowledge of Magical Creatures (of which Luna knew an exorbitant number of). He even asked them what they  _ wanted  _ to learn. Harry could hardly believe it, an adult putting in so much effort for a bunch of students where he didn’t have to. 

Several times over the course of the lesson, Harry had caught Snape looking at him. But he wrote it off easily, seeing as Snape had been assessing all of them the whole time. 

As he ushered them from the room at 4:30, Snape told them he would have a proper lesson drawn up for the next week.

_ The next week. _

Snape was inviting them  _ back.  _ Harry didn’t have to try so hard to imagine that kind version of Snape. He could see it in this one, behind the pokey outer shell.

_______________________

The year was winding to a close. Harry tried valiantly not to think of what his summer looked like, and was mostly successful. Between Quidditch, studying for exams, and meeting with Snape every week for supplemental Defense lessons, Harry barely had any time to even think of thinking of the Dursleys. 

The same could not be said for his dreams. 

Whenever Harry closed his eyes to sleep, it seemed as if the Dursleys had been waiting in his mind to pounce. Quirrelmort popped in occasionally to remind him of the triviality of his own thoughts. How ridiculous was he, that he had  _ burned a man to death,  _ and yet he was afraid of a few overweight Muggles. 

Harry’s friends, on the other hand, seemed to be much more ready to think and speak about summer all the time. Such as right now, during a break in Snape’s tutoring.

“I think,” Hermione said, drawing a piece of parchment and quill from her knapsack, “that if we plan accordingly, we can spend the break together in equal parts at each of our homes.”

“We’ve got 14 weeks in total, right?” Draco asks, and Snape nods.

“We could spend the first month of break all in our own homes, then everyone goes to everyone else’s house for two weeks.” Hermione says decisively, scribbling away at her sheet of parchment.”

Harry tries to sink down into the couch and out of sight. He needs to tell them that Dumbledore won’t let him leave the Dursley’s for the first two months of summer and that they most definitely  _ cannot  _ stay at the Dursley’s… but he can also imagine the looks on their faces. Looks that say  _ we weren’t planning for you anyway, Harry.  _ Looks that say  _ as if we’d want to spend the summer with you anyways.  _

Harry turns his cup round in his hand anxiously, the dregs of his tea swirling around the bottom. 

“Harry, do you know if the Dursleys would let you go anywhere, or have the rest of us over at all?” Hermione’s voice cuts through Harry’s thoughts.

“Dumbledore says I have to stay with the Dursleys for the first two months of summer, and I don’t think the Dursleys want anyone to come over, they don’t much like anything fr- magical.”

Hermione frowned at him, and Harry steels himself for the disdain, the anger.

It doesn’t come.

“Well,” Hermione says. “We’ll just have to work out a way that we can go to everyone’s houses during the last month. We can spend the first two months at our own houses, visiting when we can, and then spend the last month going to each house!” Hermione says excitedly, scribbling away at her parchment.

“Wait,” Harry says, sitting up straighter. “You don’t have to change your plans for me. I’ll-- I’ll just see you guys at school. It’s ok, really.”

  
“Mate, really, we’d rather change the plan to spend time with you,” Ron says, leaning around Draco to look Harry in the eye. 

“Oh,” he says, stunned, happiness swelling in his chest. Ron cracks a wry smile at him, leaning back. Hermione proudly flourishes her sheet of parchment paper, almost whacking Ron in the face.

“Alright! So, I’ve set it all out, let me know if you have anything you’d like to change.”

Hermione slides the parchment across the table, so it’s at an angle that everyone will be able to lean forward and read it. 

_ Month 1:  _ separate

_ Month 2: _

Week 1: The Weasley's

Week 2: Luna's

Week 3: Hermione’s

Week 4: Dracos'

_ Month 3:  _ repeat previous circuit with Harry

Harry leaned back in his chair and tried to smother the smile creeping up his face. His friends were willing to butcher their plans just to make sure he had a good summer break too. He felt the sudden urge to gather up all his friends and squeeze them tight, but he didn’t want to make them regret their decision, so he kept himself stuck to the comfy seats the Professor had conjured up for them. 

Around him, his friends chattered excitedly about their summer plans. Harry could hardly wait.

“It’s 4:30, Uncle Sev ” Draco announced, setting his teacup on the table in front of him. Harry and his friends all followed suit, gathering up their things, and preparing to leave. They traipsed in a line to the door, stopping right before they exited. 

“Bye Uncle Sev!” Draco said cheerily, waving over his shoulder. Ron, immediately after him, sniggered. 

“See you next week, Uncle Sev!” He said jokingly. The rest of them broke into smiles, offering various  _ Goodbye, Professor _ ’s as they left. 

(They entirely missed the warm, stunned look on Severus’ face.)

_______________________

  
  


Luna was the first to do it in public. After that first time, Ron jokingly called Professor Snape “Uncle Sev,” almost all of them had unironically called him Uncle Sev during their Saturday meetings.

Luna, however, was the first to do so while in public. Even  _ Draco  _ hadn’t done that. 

_______________________

  
  


Luna raised her hand. Severus, from the back of the classroom surveying the brewing, noticed, stepping down the few stairs to stand beside Luna’s workstation.

“Yes, Ms. Lovegood?”

“What do you think about four stems of roses for the two eyes of newt? Crushed  Sebastiana pavoniana to balance the acidity.”

“And the overall effect?”

“It should help the smoothness of the potion. Eye of newt tends to leave a potion thick and hard to swallow.”

“Go ahead,” Severus said, continuing forward down the steps.

“Thanks, Uncle Sev!” Luna said behind him. Severus’ steps stuttered for half a pace before he went smoothly forward as if nothing had happened. Facing away from the students as he was, none of them saw the small smile creeping onto his face unbidden. However, behind him, he could hear whispers breaking out around the classroom. He dragged his expression back under control.

“Quiet!” He called, turning back around, and the students scurried to do their work before he could take points but didn’t stop shooting disbelieving glances over their shoulders at Luna. 

_______________________

  
  


The doors to the Great Hall slammed open, Fred and George beaming and out of breath.

“Luna Lovegood!” They said in unison, rushing to the Ravenclaw table where she was seated. Around her, Harry, Hermione, and Draco had confused looks on their faces. Ginny and Ron looked resigned to whatever it was their brothers were about to do. Luna looked entirely unperturbed. 

“The one,” said Fred.

“The only,” said George.

“The inimitable-” Fred tried to continue before Ron cut him off. 

“Spit it out already!” 

George elbowed Ron, being closest to him. He and Fred continued to beam at Luna. 

“We heard about Potions class,” George said. He and Fred both seized one of Luna’s hands, shaking them up and down vigorously. “We thank you greatly for your service, madame.”

“Of course,” Luna says primly, looking supremely unbothered by the twins practically shaking her arms off. After a moment more, Ginny whacks both of them with her napkin and they drop her hands with a yelp, ducking away from the assault. 

“Potions class?” Hermione asks as all of them watch Fred and George scamper over to the Gryffindor table to talk excitedly to Lee Jordan. 

“I got Uncle Sev’s attention in class by calling him Uncle Sev, and I didn’t really notice, but the Professor took me aside after class to tell me he didn’t mind, and I realized it had probably slipped out because Draco says it so much.” Luna smiled at Draco, and he blushed a bit.

“Well, he’s my uncle! What else would I call him?” Ron shrugs, before grinning mischievously. 

“What do you think he’d do if we all started saying it in class?” He asked. Hermione’s lips twisted into a little smile.

“I think the rest of our year may explode,” she said, and the rest of them burst into giggles.

_______________________

“Your potion is almost the exact shade I described,” Snape says, peering into Hermione and Ron’s cauldron. “Exemplary work.”

Hermione beams up at the professor. 

“Thanks, Uncle Sev!” 

Ron, next to her, makes a choking noise, slapping a hand over his mouth. Behind Ron and across the aisle, Harry can see Dean slapping Seamus insistently on the arm, Seamus looking at Hermione with wide, unbelieving eyes. 

Harry tucks the hard ball of irrational fear deeper inside him. He knows Snape doesn't mind them calling him that-- if he did, he wouldn’t hesitate to say so. Harry is three weeks out from the Dursleys, and every instinct is screaming at him to stop annoying the Adult, to comply, and be quiet and do whatever it takes to stay safe. But that instinct is at war with the amusement he feels at the expression on Snape’s face, equal parts bewilderment and shock. 

“I-- you’re welcome, Ms. Granger.”

Snape sweeps away from them, back towards his desk, and Harry watches him from the corner of his eye as he settles into his seat, a look of tired exasperation on his face as he stares out sightlessly at the classroom. After a long moment, he drops his head into his hands, and he keeps it there for the rest of the class.

_______________________

  
  


They’re two days out from their exams, and Harry is sort of worried that Hermione is either going to burst into tears, hysterical laughter, or both. She was a frenzy of scrolls, books, and ink stains. Everyone else wasn’t much better, but Ron and Ginny seemed to have adopted a “whatever happens, happens” attitude by this point. Luna was reading a book upside down (she had said that was how you got the “hidden knowledge” out of it, and Hermione had almost looked tempted to set down her study guide and say something about it, but in the end, her study guide won out), and Draco looked almost as stressed as Hermione, though he was hiding it better. 

Harry was somewhere between Ron and Hermione. He had a study guide of his own creation sitting in front of him, but he had abandoned it a little while ago in favor of picking at his dinner. He was worried about his exams. Exams had been canceled the year before, so in the end, he hadn’t had to worry about it. He wanted to do well on his exams, having the first chance of his life to do so. At the same time, he didn’t want to bother Draco or Hermione for tips on  _ how  _ to do better, so he would have to just suck it up and figure it out himself.

Harry sighed, poking at his mashed potatoes. He’d just have to do his best and see how it went.

  
  


_______________________

  
  


Harry left the exam room feeling as if someone had blended up his brain, with his hand cramping from several days of writing and wand movements. The physical drain was only compounded by the fact that in a week, he would be back with the Dursleys for the next two months. At the very least, he could look forward to the fact that he would spend his last month of the summer with his friends. 

Hermione and Ron were two steps behind him, along with a flood of other students in his year that he didn’t know. 

“Lake?” Ron asked around a yawn. Hermione nodded, smoothing a hand over her frizzy hair as she did so. 

“Let’s wait for Draco, then we’ll go,” Harry said to the two of them, and Ron responded by slumping tiredly against the wall. Hermione began to dig into her bag, and Harry braced himself for the inevitable flood of “Oh, I knew number 37 was Law of Restrictive Transformations!” Harry shot a look at Ron, and the expression on his face looked almost as if he would cry. 

“Hermione, please, just… 10 minutes.” Harry begged, and she paused in her search through her bag, smiling sheepishly. 

“Sorry, I just get so worried,” she said, wringing her hands together in place of digging through her bag.

“There’s nothing to be done now, ‘Mione, may as well take a well-deserved break. Sides, we all know you got top marks in every class.”

Hermione blushed, and Harry smiled at his two friends. Ron’s sure confidence in all of their abilities was always heartening. He didn’t even look awake enough to realize what a compliment he had bestowed-- instead, it was spoken as if it was absolute fact and nothing else.

Draco came out the door as the last of the students were streaming out-- mostly Slytherins, as they were seated in the back of the large lecture hall. 

“Ready?” Draco asked, adjusting his bag strap over his shoulder. Ron straightened, blinking hard, and nodded. Draco led the way out to the lake, and they chattered a bit as they walked about pointless topics, like Ron’s latest morning-wake-up venture, or a new chess technique Draco had read about, but Harry ultimately paid little attention to the conversation, lost in his own head.

“There?” Ron asked, nudging Harry with his arm before pointing at an open patch of the bank near the left side of the lake. The others agreed, and they hurried to head over to the blessedly sunny and open patch before someone else could swoop in and take it. 

Ron slipped his bag off his shoulder and flopped face-first into the soft grass, contented groaning muffled in the grass. Hermione, Draco, and Harry all followed suit much more graciously, settling around Ron in a rough circle and laying down, face upwards to soak up the sun. After a moment, Ron rolled over in order to pull an abundance of snacks out of his bag. Harry, hungry from all the thinking, still couldn’t resist slipping a croissant into his bag on principle. He had been trying for ages to figure out how to properly work a preservation spell, but it was a Fifth Year spell, and he’d yet to manage it. 

Around him, Harry’s friends chattered quietly, and Hermione checked her watch before pulling out a scroll from her bag. Knowing her, it had been ten minutes to the second, and Harry couldn’t stifle a grin at the thought. He laid back on the grass, crossing his arms behind his head, and tried to memorize everything he could about how he was feeling at that moment.

  
  


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Severus Snape was… stunned. He had been billowing his way down a hallway on the first floor when a gaggle of Second and First Years had plowed towards him. Of course, they were  _ his  _ gaggle of students, or he would have been much more likely to start taking points.

“Uncle Sev! Uncle Sev!” Called Draco, who seemed to be leading the charge towards him. Severus paused, waiting for the barrage of 11 and 12-year-olds to finish their forward assault towards him. Finally, they reached him, and suddenly there was a flurry of parchment in his face. He gently pushed the arms out of paper-cuts-to-the-eyes range enough so that he could see all of their excited, beaming faces.

“We got exam results back!” Hermione said excitedly, bouncing a little in place. Even Ginny and Ron, who both generally held a decent amount of disdain for school, looked pleased with themselves. 

“I assume you have all managed to pass you, classes?” Severus asked drily.

“Draco placed first in Potions and Charms!” Hermione burst out excitedly, and Severus didn’t even have a chance of answering before Draco was talking with just as much enthusiasm.

“Well, Hermione got first in Transfiguration, History of Magic  _ and  _ Astronomy!”

Severus raised a brow in surprise. He had expected a decently even split between the two of them for top rankings in class, but between the two of them they had only placed first in five of their classes, so who had placed top in the other two.

“Well done, you two. And the rest of you?”

“Higher than I expected, so mum will be pleased.” Ron shrugged, and Ginny nodded in agreement. Finally, Severus turned to Harry. The boy shrunk a little under his gaze, shrugging.

“Um, I did ok, I think,” Harry said meekly, and Hermione immediately turned to Severus in outrage.

“He did better than ok!” she said, seemingly outraged on Harry’s behalf. “He placed first in Defense and in the top 15 of our year in almost every other class!”

Snape turned an appraising eye on Harry, who was blushing furiously, and looking very much like he wanted to stamp on Hermione’s toes. Severus filed the boy's disinterest to discuss his own accomplishments away to think about later, and turned the slightest smile on Harry.

“Well done, Mr. Potter. I am glad to see you have taken my lessons to heart.”

“O-of course, sir! I, I really appreciate the help you’ve given us this semester.”

“It was my pleasure, you are all excellent students, and I must congratulate you all on your scores and hard work this year.”

The small group of children broke into delighted babbles and thanks, and Severus tried not to smile too fondly at them in public, but he wasn’t sure he was entirely successful.

  
  


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Harry’s stomach twisted with dread as he ate his last meal in the Great Hall until September. Harry had been attempting for the last few weeks to slim down his portions in order to prepare his body for a summer at the Dursleys. He also knew that this morning would probably be his last regular meal until his friends came to pick him up in two months, but was unable to stomach more than a few swallows of scrambled eggs. 

And in no time at all, breakfast was over. Harry stood with the rest of his friends to leave the Great Hall and head towards the carriages that would carry them to the train platform. He gazed around himself, trying to catalog every brick and stone within the Great Hall, and caught Professor Snape's eye. The man waved gently towards himself, where he was standing against the wall, and Harry understood the signal. He gently touched Ron’s elbow and jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate Professor Snape, and Ron nodded in understanding.

One good thing about his diminutive size, Harry mused, was that he could finagle his way through crowds quite well. By the time Harry made it to Professor Snape, though, most everyone had cleared from the Great Hall, with Harry’s friends standing in a haphazard clump by the doorway.

“Yes, Professor?” Harry said once he had reached Professor Snape.

“Mr. Po-- Harry,” Snape said, meeting Harry’s eyes clearly. “If you need anything over the summer, anything, please do not hesitate to contact me,” he said, and--

Harry wanted to believe him, wanted so bad to believe that this adult could want to help him, could be worried about Harry’s wellbeing. 

“I--” Harry looked down at his feet, his ratty trainers, the ripped edges of Dudley’s too-long hand-me-down jeans rolled three times over just to keep from dragging on the ground. “Thank you, Uncle Sev.” he said, finally looking back up to meet the man’s dark brown eyes. Then he darted forward in a burst of courage he usually only felt when his life was in danger, and wrapped his arms around Snape’s waist in a rushed, rib crushing hug, before darting back to his friends.

Snape watched him go, and after a moment, he felt eyes on him. He turned, and up at the head table, Dumbledore sat watching him, the twinkle in his eyes muted. Snape tried not to shiver and strode from the room. 

END OF BOOK 1 OF HARRY POTTER AND THE HIDDEN PATH

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment your thoughts please! and subscribe to the series if you haven't because book 2 is going to be posted soonish!! the title is a work in progress, but it will be just as angsty and full of friendship because that's all i know
> 
> end of book 1!! this is kind of crazy. thanks for sticking around
> 
> EDIT: totally forgot I could do this and use my little platform for good
> 
> https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE leave a comment im literally begging you idk how else to tell if people like this. next update is already written, but it'll probably be 2-3weeks before i post it so i have a solid buffer and you don't go months without an update. 
> 
> subscribe, comment, kudos, check out my other works please?
> 
> PS: if this chapter seems a little bit rushed, that's because it is. I needed to get all the plot out of the way before i could get into the angst/friendship lol


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